Day 111 - 30 Mar 95 - Page 32

     
     1        carcasses because we could destroy them directly.  The
     2        concern was more related to detained carcasses that needed
     3        further inspection or, perhaps, due to excessive faecal
     4        contamination, needed trimming to prevent the carcass
     5        washing from spreading the contamination all over the
     6        carcass.  This, obviously, had to be done in an
     7        unrefrigerated detained room, and due to the lack of
     8        manpower, as we were always short of meat inspectors, we
     9        could not do it as the line was going on; we needed all the
    10        people on the line and, obviously, this was a serious
    11        concern to me as well.
    12
    13   Q.   Because it was staying there at a considerable amount of
    14        time, presumably?
    15        A.  Yes, that is right.
    16
    17   Q.   How long was it staying up to in the detained room?
    18        A.  It could be anything.  If what we started slaughtering
    19        in the morning at 6 o'clock it had to wait for the first
    20        break at 8.30 or 9 o'clock for anybody to be able to deal
         with it.  We are talking about a carcass that is
    22        contaminated already.
    23
    24        You have to take into consideration when you talk about
    25        surface faecal contamination always that all faecal
    26        contamination, obviously, we consider it as containing
    27        pathogen bacteria.  We cannot know and there is no way we
    28        can find out, so we have to treat it as being dangerous.
    29
    30        The biggest worry about having contaminated carcasses in
    31        unrefrigerated areas is that the pathogenic bacteria very
    32        readily penetrate from the surface of the carcass into the
    33        muscles; whereas spoilage bacteria is very poor.  They are
    34        normally poor at penetrating and this leads to a dangerous
    35        situation where we have obvious spoilage on the surface of
    36        the carcass and we have pathogenic bacteria penetrating the
    37        carcass. The higher temperature, obviously the faster the
    38        penetration happens.
    39
    40   Q.   So the pathogenic bacteria, would that only apply in the
         detained room or would the penetration of pathogenic
    42        bacteria take place before that as well during the other
    43        processes that you already mentioned?
    44        A.  Normally, we try to, the basic idea in an abattoir is
    45        that the carcasses are chilled as soon as possible after
    46        evisceration, and we try to do that.  Under normal
    47        circumstances, a carcass would enter the chillers in
    48        anything from, say, half an hour to an hour-and-a-half from
    49        evisceration, this carcass would enter the chillers which
    50        is still acceptable limits. 
    51 
    52        Another problem with the pathogenic bacteria is that if the 
    53        chilling is done -- and that is something I will come to
    54        next -- I would like to jump now to the.
    55
    56   Q.   I think before we jump to the chillers ----
    57        A. -- There was one more point, yes, sorry.
    58
    59   Q.   Is there anything of concern after the gut removal?
    60        A.  Yes.  Where you see the man with the splitting saw,