Meat hygiene is a key measure of both food safety and quality, intrinsic in today's
competitive retail market. Profit margins in the poultry-meat sector in particular are very narrow with producers constantly looking at improvements throughout the "plough-to-plate" production process. However it is paramount that any
improvements are safe to consumers and to the wider environment.
Campylobacter Spp. are the largest cause of bacterial food-borne gastro-intestinal disease in the western world and are a major focus of research by government authorities such as the UK's Food Standards Agency, as strong links have been made between the incidence of Campylobacter in broilers and the disease in humans. The infectious dose for Campylobacter spp. in humans is very low. This means that high standards of hygiene are critical at all levels of the broiler production process. Broiler industry workers were surveyed as to their knowledge of the issues surrounding Campylobacter spp. and found little evidence of specific knowledge regarding the bacteria, though did find evidence that general food safety measures are widely known. The results of this survey could be critical in designing education programs for workers, enabling knowledge-gaps to be addressed.
Blood waste disposal from poultry abattoirs is a considerable cost to producers as legislation states that it must be sent for heat treatment (often over long distances). However, one chapter within this thesis shows that lime treatments (both Calcium oxide and calcium hydroxide) are highly effective in killing inoculated (109 CFU) pathogenic bacteria (E. coli 0157:H7 & Salmonella poona), even at low levels of lime (2.5%). This mixture has also been shown to give agricultural benefit to perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne ), when added at typical commercial application rates. Thus, lime treatment is a safe and beneficial alternative disposal method for blood waste, which therefore has the potential to cut costs for both broiler producers and local farmers.
Damaged chicken wings are currently disposed of as category-3 hazardous waste due to Meat Hygiene Service legislation. However, the study contained in this thesis shows there to be no difference in either pathogenic or spoilage bacterial loads between normal wings and damaged wings. Longitudinal studies have investigated this further and have found that the vast majority of physical damage occurs postmortem rather than pre-mortem, which minimises the opportunities for the ingress of bacteria into the broken wing.
Different production systems have also been examined for the incidence of broken wings, with RSPCA freedom foods birds having significantly less breakages (both pre- and post-mortem) than equivalent sized (2.2kg) conventional birds. Heavier conventional birds (3.8kg) were also shown to have a greater incidence of broken wings than standard conventional birds (2.2.kg).