Clostridium Botulinum control in fresh red meat cutting
I am writing my HACCP plan for Fresh Red Meat Cutting which includes the vacuum packing step and the FSA favourite clostridium bot controls.
Please can someone share with me an example of their hazard analysis in a similar area to see whether mine is up to scratch.
Why are you concerned about botulism in fresh red meat? Even vac packed you've got a short shelf and low temp storage? Not understanding why it would be of concern
I don't have the microbiological/HACCP knowledge to assist OP but the below link may shed some light on the area particularly for non-UK members
Whilst Clostridium Bot is very low risk in Chilled Vacuum packed meat products the British Food Standards Agency consider it a risk which should be considered in the HACCP plan.
Only this week a report commissioned by The British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) at Campden BRI wrote “The shelf-life of fresh red meat held at 3°C and 8°C is of great significance to the industry. “These new scientific findings will give meat processors the ammunition they need to apply longer retail shelf-lives to their products."
So our HACCP plan must detail the controls in place to eliminate the risk. Temperature control during storage <3, a restricted 10 day shelf life and clear storage labelling are the only controls in meat as I understand it.
Isn't that for sous vide cooking? I thought poster was referring too FRESH???
The same rules are applied to fresh
WOW! That's aggressive lol
Given that it would be killed by the heat of cooking (perhaps mince not included) I don't understand the logic in applying this to fresh
Having said that, can you acidify the surface with an acid dip (citric etc) prior to packaging???
I agree with you and its a very expensive process to validate. Clos Bot needs to be challenge tested to fully prove that it wont survive if the shelf life of the product is extended beyond 10 days.
For smaller businesses its more effective to restrict shelf life and reduce storage conditions.
That's crazy.
I worked with the exact same product here (USA) for two years (vacuum packed, whole muscle beef cuts) and FSIS wouldn't even think of considering to address C.botulinum as a pathogen of concern. Provided you are providing safe handling instructions on your packaging, and depending on the end-user, there are a couple of considerations:
1. Whole muscle meat that has not been pierced is sterile past 1/8" or less past the surface.
2. C.bot toxin is inactivated quickly (<2m) at temperatures of 176F (80C)
3. Any cooking exposure of a whole muscle product, whether it be grilling/frying/broiling/braising (basically anything aside from sous vide as mentioned above) will inactivate any extremely unlikely toxin that may have been released from spores that are virtually never going to be present on whole muscle red meat, and long before you would even be able to cook the meat to "rare" even.
Scampi also brings up a good point - during most slaughter processes, the carcasses are sprayed with an acidic solution, though it wouldn't be citric - more likely acetic/peracetic/lactic acid would be used. We took it a step further and set up an "intervention cabinet" whereby we would pass our subprimals through a spray of 200ppm peracetic acid prior to trim, because (at the time) we were using our bench trim to make 80/20 ground beef.