Comparison of cross-contamination of Salmonella spp. on pork meat and workers' hands during pork cutting processing

Abstract

This study describes cross-contamination events that occur in animal food processing. We analyzed the number of Salmonella spp. contamination transferred from pork meat to workers' hands (wearing polyethylene gloves; PG, cotton gloves; CG. and bare hands), cutting boards and knives, and vice versa. Transfer rate of CG 38.80% was higher than that of PG 3.11% and bare hands 1.35%. In particular, when wearing CG, the transfer rate from the CG to bare hands with CG was 0.07%. Also, the range of transfer rates from the contaminated pork meat to cutting board and knife was 0.20-1.99%. In contrast, the transfer rates from the worker's hands (with PG/CG and bare hands) to cutting board, knife, and pork meat ranged from 0.0015-0.21%. There was a lower transfer rate from workers' hands than from pork meat. These findings indicate that the use of PG compared with CG could effectively reduce or prevent the cross-contamination and provide important information concerning the consecutive transfer of Salmonella spp. during food processing.