Postmortem inspection of carcases and offal has been a cornerstone of consumer protection in the red-meat industry for over a century. In 2011, there began strong moves to reform the traditional process of meat inspection applied to cattle, sheep and goats in Australia. A major motivation was the widespread acceptance that organoleptic inspection does little to control the most important hazards in meat products - microbial pathogens derived from gut flora. The watershed reforms in international trade provided another incentive by encouraging the application of a risk-based approach to food safety, which allows for the discontinuation of processes that do not enhance public health outcomes. As well, there was a strong imperative to ensure that resources allocated to quality assurance delivered maximum economic benefit for both consumers and processors. This review discusses how the role of meat inspection is likely to evolve into the future under the influence of these forces. It summarises how the current system was derived through repeated modification over time, mainly to satisfy the requirements of trading partners. Major developments are summarised, focusing especially on how the inclusion of particular organoleptic techniques was initially justified and the relevance of these to modern meat production. Overall, analysis of past and present practices suggests that in the future both public health and efficiency will be better served by strategically integrating the most effective elements of traditional organoleptic inspection with information from the preslaughter period and the use of modern technology for rapid and accurate detection of hazards.

No abstract

No abstract

THE fungus Mortierella wolfii is known to be a cause of mycotic abortion and pneumonia in cattle in New Zealand (di others 1972, Carter and others 1973), the UK (MacDonald and Corbel 1981), the USA- (Knudtson and Kirkbride 1992) and Australia (Neilan and others 1982), but there are few reports of M wolfii lesions in, and of its isolation from, sources other than bovine female reproductive tracts and fetuses (MacDonald and Corbel 1981, Knudston and Kirkbride 1992). This short communication reports on the isolation of M wolfii from the liver of a cow.The liver of a four-year-old cow was examined within one hour of slaughter, during a survey of hepatic lesions at an abattoir in Queensland, Australia. The cow, which originated from a feedlot in Gympie, south-east Queensland, had passed a routine antemortem inspection, but the liver was condemned at postmortem inspection due to the presence of a visible surface abscess. The abscess was approximately 4 to 5 cm in diameter, protruded from the visceral surface of the left hepatic lobe and had a fibrous wall about 2 cm thick. It contained semi-fluid, creamy yellowish material centrally. The rest of the liver had a normal appearance, and liver sections approximately 1 cm thick revealed no other lesions. Information about lesions elsewhere in the carcase was not available.A sample of the lesion was collected aseptically and kept on ice before being examined microbiologically within two hours of collection. The external surface of the liver abscess was seared with a hot spatula and a sample of abscess material was obtained with a sterile pipette. This was then inoculated onto two plates of 10 per cent sheep blood agar (SBA; Oxoid) and a MacConkey agar plate (Oxoid). A smear was prepared from the abscess material and was Gram stained. One SBA plate was inoculated aerobically and the other anaerobically. All the plates were incubated at 37°C and examined at 24,48 and 72 hours.An additional sample which included the wall of the abscess and adjacent livet tissue was collected and fixed by immersion in 10 per cent buffered formalin for 24 hours. Three blocks were obtained from this sample and embedded in paraffin wax, sectioned at 6 pim and stained with haematoxylin and eosin, periodic acid-Schiff plus haematoxylin (PASH), Gram and Grocott methanamine stains. After this, the blocks were serially sectioned and every 10th section was stained with PASH.No bacteria or fungi were seen in the Gram-stained smear of the liver abscess aspirate, and no aerobic or anaerobic bacterial growth was observed on any of the plates after 72 hours. Ten identical fungal colonies were observed on the aerobically incubated SBA plates. These colonies were fast growing, white to greyish-white and downy, with a zonated or lobed surface appearance. The fungus was provisionally identified as a member of the genus Mortierella. As it is usually difficult to induce sporulation in such species, subcultures were made on a variety of culture media including: Sabouraud dextrose (SDA; Oxoid), potato dextrose (P...

ObjectiveTo evaluate organoleptic postmortem inspection techniques for bovine livers and kidneys.Study design At Australian export abattoirs, bovine liver and kidneys are assessed and graded by qualified meat inspectors during normal operations. Over a 12-month period at a large abattoir in eastern Australia during 1997 and 1998, a sample of these organs was reassessed independently using a range of pathological and microbiological methods. Agreement between routine inspection and independent assessment was evaluated using methods of inter-rater agreement.Results A total of 944 livers and 1374 kidneys were included in the study. All of these organs had been classified during routine inspection. The authors examined 363 livers and 329 kidneys both grossly and histologically, including 36 livers and 14 kidneys that were also subjected to microbiological examination. All other organs were only examined grossly. There was only a moderate level of agreement between the routine and independent assessment methods. For livers, the percentage agreement was 80.2%, McNemar's test of symmetry 55.2 (3 degrees of freedom, P < 0.001) and kappa 0.63. For kidneys, the percentage agreement was 67.8%, McNemar's test of symmetry 9.9 (1df, P = 0.002) and kappa 0.35. ConclusionsThe results reinforce concerns from a number of authors about organoleptic postmortem inspection. Risk assessment methodologies offer the opportunity to modify inspection techniques in a manner that is most relevant to current public health concerns.