Day 105 - 16 Mar 95 - Page 29


     
     1        would be only just outside the best grade.  It would be
     2        acceptable as a very tight customer specification for meat
     3        This is what I mean when I say all these are within broadly
     4        acceptable grounds.  The use of the word "contamination"
     5        for perfectly normal microbiological conditions, in my
     6        opinion, is erroneous.
     7
     8   Q.   That lamb flank is before it goes into the boning hall, is
     9        it not?
    10        A.  Almost certainly that would go out as a carcass as it
    11        was.  But that is what we find in the real world of meat
    12        technology, without any encroachment into the areas of risk
    13        to health.
    14
    15   Q.   Are you saying, therefore, that when they get the results
    16        of their swab tests, what grade do they start saying: "Ah,
    17        we ought to improve this then"?
    18        A.  If the swab counts were showing gross levels of total
    19        numbers of bacteria, that is, if they were getting into the
    20        10 million or 6 million, millions per square centimetre, or
    21        per gramme, whichever measure is being used, then the alarm
    22        bells may well begin to ring not necessarily because of
    23        health problems, because of keeping quality problems.  The
    24        Total Viable Count is a function of keeping quality.  This
    25        is no reference in any of these to the pathogens apart from
    26        the E.coli.
    27
    28        Therefore, I must repeat that these microbiological results
    29        are perfectly normal work-a-day results that one encounters
    30        in meat.
    31
    32   Q.   Would you say that above 500,000 then is, when you point
    33        that, that would be something that would start to worry
    34        you?
    35        A.  It brings it into the middle category.  Below that, it
    36        is perfectly unremarkable.  If it gets between 500,000 and
    37        a million, that is acceptable.
    38
    39   Q.   So above a million is unacceptable?
    40        A.  Above a million, it may well be unacceptable to a
    41        customer.  You do get counts of over a million because,
    42        again, it is -- I hate to use the jargon word -- an emotive
    43        matter when we talk about bacteria and you talk about
    44        millions in lay language.  But, in practice, those sort of
    45        figures are not anything to become excited about.
    46
    47   Q.   But the point about bacteria is that they multiply.  They
    48        do not go down, they multiply?
    49        A.  Some bacteria go grown under chilled conditions, some
    50        multiply, some stay as they are.  It is not a 
    51        straightforward matter. 
    52 
    53   Q.   But, in general, the bacterial load on consignments of meat
    54        will increase?
    55        A.  Overall it will but, in health terms, and in safety
    56        terms, which is what I am largely concerned with, that
    57        statement does not necessarily hold true because
    58        Salmonella, for example, do not thrive at chill room
    59        temperatures, and they do not compete well with other
    60        spoilage organisms, and are quite likely to reduce.

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