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.
