Efficacy of Cetylpyridinium Chloride to Reduce E. Coli O157:H7 in Commercial Beef Processing Plants

<p>Beef carcass contamination during processing has been shown to occur principally from hides. During the hide removal process, pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella are transferred from the hide, where they are high in prevalence, to the carcass. Numerous carcass interventions have been implemented into beef processing plants to remove carcass microbial contamination. However, occasional process failures occur that result in greater contamination than can be effectively removed with current carcass interventions. Furthermore, it would be more effective to prevent carcass contamination rather than rely on decontamination procedures.</p>
<p>We have recently reported that if bacterial contamination of the hide were eliminated or greatly reduced before hide removal, the prevalence of Escherichia coli O157:H7 on the preevisceration carcass was nearly eliminated (Nou et al., 2003, submitted). The strategy evaluated by Nou et al. was chemical dehairing, a process not widely in use due to a variety of difficulties in process application. However, their results imply that processes that effectively clean the hides before hide removal may be effective interventions for preventing carcass microbial contamination. The common oral antimicrobial compound cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) may have potential for use as a similar hide intervention process. CPC has been used in numerous studies to reduce carcass contamination of poultry, and Cutter et al. have demonstrated the effectiveness of CPC for reducing microbial counts on beef carcasses as well. However, before CPC could be tested as a hide intervention several protocol questions needed to be addressed, and a number of conditions optimized.</p>