What are the threshold levels for coliform and E. coli in butcher shops?

Hi all,

We have conducted food safety intervention in butcher shops ( these are small fixed kiosks or shops attached to restaurants that sell meat at their premises if attached to restaurant or sell meat to their customers to consume at home) to improve microbial contamination in meat, water for routine use in the shop (water if often from municipal tap water but may not be used directly from the tap, that is, in most often, they collect from the tap and store in their shop  in a container for routine use) and food-contact surfaces (cutting board, meat hanging board, meat cutter palm). We measured coliform and E.coli in these samples. Samples were collected using hygiena swabs (https://www.hygiena....ructions-en.pdf) from 10 x 10 cm area of surfaces including meat. For water, 1ml of water was transferred to hygiena swab for incubation. For all surface samples, after incubation, cfu/100cm ² of coliform and presence of E.coli or per 1mL of water  dsample were determined in  samples.  But we are struggling to have the thresholds for these indicators in the samples (meat cutting board, meat haning board, worker palm, meat surface (swab sample was collected from 10 x 10 cm hung meat surface area like other food-contact surfaces) and water)  to decide whether the samples meet the standard or not. We want to get references from ISO or other international references or any reference if microbiology sound to base on. Could someone help with this?

We would also appreciate if any suggestion has given regarding this question.

Thanking you in advance.

Best,

Getachew

It really needs to be zero

Water should not be stored as even municipal water contains microbes that will multiply from standing (probably not e coli, but others for sure)

Allowing any value above zero is allowing for illness as it may be 2 cfu when you swab and 100000 an hour later depending on conditions

Agreeing with Scampi, here.

With raw meat, I would not be comfortable with any kind of counts of those pathogens.

It really needs to be zero

 

Water should not be stored as even municipal water contains microbes that will multiply from standing (probably not e coli, but others for sure)

 

Allowing any value above zero is allowing for illness as it may be 2 cfu when you swab and 100000 an hour later depending on conditions

Thanks for your very useful response. It is a common practice to store the water in butcher shops in the study area because of water scarcity in the area. Literatures also suggest upto 2 cfu/cm² or 200 cfu/100cm² to be satisfactory for coliform count in food preparation areas. What is your reflection on this?

Agreeing with Scampi, here.

With raw meat, I would not be comfortable with any kind of counts of those pathogens.

Thanks. In reality, in developing countries where cacrcases are not treated with food sanitizers during slaughtering in abattoirs and because of poor meat handling during skining and transportation many counts of bacteria are detected in raw meat. Our intervention was conducted to reduce the load through training meat vendors how to use of food sanitizers such as hypochlorous acid on raw meat while it is on the hanging baord in their shops.

best,

Gech

Got it, so if you need to store water, then it should be treated with sodium hypochlorite (inexpensive and easy to get) and/or agitated regularly so it is not standing water

As for the hypochlorous acid, there are lots of papers backing up it's use  BUT its' not the best option available to you    I have attached a document intended for small abattoirs that you may find very helpful

https://open.alberta...3-089-400-2.pdf