16
Qu a l i t y A s s u r a n c e .
Fr om f a rm t o s h o p .
QS – Report 2012
Outlook 2013
More risk businesses in
salmonella monitoring
Monitoring programmes serve to classify risks and
establish developments and trends. Contrary to the
long-term trend, an erratic increase in the number
of risk businesses has been observed in salmonella
monitoring since the middle of 2012. Similar
developments are also being reported from the
Netherlands, Denmark and the UK. The reasons have
not yet been analysed sufficiently, but it is presumed
that changes in feeding due to increased feed cost,
as well as the quality of cleaning and disinfection
measures have an influence. The experts in the
QS committees are consulting on the causes and
possible countermeasures.
The number of pig production businesses from which
there is a risk of the entry of salmonella into the
meat production chain had decreased continuously
in recent years. The variety of measures which
farmers and veterinarians implemented jointly to
lower salmonella contamination in pig production
businesses showed an effect.
As stipulated in the salmonella regulation, every
pig production business in the QS scheme must
have up to 60 samples examined every year. With
25,000
categorised businesses, this totals more
than
1.7
million meat juice or blood samples a
year
.
Businesses in which over 40 percent of the
samples are positive are classed in Category III (high
salmonella risk) and must initiate countermeasures.
Three quarters of all businesses are classed in
Category I (low salmonella risk).
The current goals in the further development of
salmonella monitoring include the reduction of limit
values, a changed procedure for the categorisation of
pig production businesses and the inclusion of sows
in salmonella monitoring.
“
Despite state-of-the-art technology, foreign matter cannot be
reliably traced in meat by mechanical means and reliable prevention
is therefore urgently required. As this is a communal task, all stages
of food production are involved in the working group on foreign
matter in meat. In the first step, a negative list for unsuitable material
for activity, which has been part of the Agriculture Pig Farming
Guideline since 2012, was included in QS. The constructive work has
to be continued and above all, the information and/or sensitisation
of everyone involved further intensified. The awareness that the
agricultural sector produces food already has to be expanded further
in order to ensure that our food is handled responsibly in the best
interests of the consumer.”
Sarah Dhem,
Managing Director Werner Schulte GmbH & Co. KG
Salmonella monitoring remains an important topic
CategoryI
CategoryII
CategoryIII
80 %
70 %
60 %
50 %
40 %
30 %
20 %
10 %
0 %
75.8%
6.3 %
17.9 %
Total of 24,984 categorised businesses, of which:
As of: 1 March 2013