The Impact of Carcass Surface Trimming During the Fabrication of Subprimals on the Resultant Escherichia coli O157:H7 Contamination Level

<p>During recent years, the beef industry has suffered from an increased number of positive E. coli O157:H7 results, recalls, and related illnesses. Therefore, the beef industry continues to search for ways to improve the safety of beef and reduce the risk of E. coli O157:H7 contamination.</p>

<p>One area that has received a great deal of attention relates to E. coli O157:H7 contamination of products intended for the production of non-intact beef products. USDA-FSIS has questioned the ability of further processors to support the fact that E. coli O157:H7 is not a reasonably likely to occur food safety hazard on the trimmed subprimals that are often used to produce these non-intact products. Previous research (Kennedy, Williams, Brown, &amp; Minerich, 2006) found that the prevalence of E. coli O157:H7 on subprimals was extremely low. However, FSIS has questioned the use of these data to support that E. coli O157:H7 is not reasonably likely to occur because these data were collected in 2004, which was a year with a low prevalence for E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef.</p>

<p>It has been theorized that trimming during the fabrication process would reduce E. coli O157:H7; however, this has not been supported by peer-reviewed research. We propose to conduct a study to determine the effectiveness of trimming original carcass surfaces during fabrication of subprimals on the reduction of E. coli O157:H7.</p>

<p>Objective: To use surrogate microorganisms as a model to evaluate the impact of trimming exterior carcass surfaces during the fabrication of subprimals in order to reduce E. coli O157:H7 contamination.</p>