Processed Pork Meat Research Articles

RoBUTCHER: A novel robotic meat factory cell platform

Automation is critically important for sustainability in meat production, where heavy reliance on human labour is a growing challenge. In this work, a novel robotic Meat Factory Cell (MFC) platform presents the opportunity for unconventional automation in pork meat processing, particularly abattoirs. Instead of following line-based approaches, which are the main option today, it uses robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to perform complex cutting and manipulation operations on entire unchilled pork carcasses, with awareness of biological variation and deformation. The long-term goal of the MFC is to take a pork carcass as an input and produce seven primal outputs: hams, shoulders, saddle, belly and entire organ set. However, the MFC platform is under continuous development – therefore, this paper aims to demonstrate it through a specific use-case: shoulder removal. The system is evaluated based on data from testing and development sessions (June–November 2022), with a total of 34 attempted shoulder removals. Data regarding the MFCs’ ability to handle variation, in addition to success rate and process timing models are presented. Qualitative feedback from skilled butchers is also discussed. The authors propose that, as well as technical development of the platform, it is important to consider new ways of comparing unconventional systems with their conventional counterparts. Innovative manufacturing systems have more to offer than raw speed and volume; traits such as flexibility, robustness and scalability – particularly economic scalability – should play a prominent role. Future legislation and standards must also encourage innovation rather than hinder innovative robotics solutions.

Quality solutions and food safety for wild pigs (Sus Scrofa) and pork processing in the North of Vietnam (Thai Nguyen) in globalization and experiences from asian countries

In recent years, competing with China and Thailand, Vietnam wild pork meat processing and wild pig feeding have become hot food processing issues. Currently, EU livestock products exported to Vietnam are subject to 10-20% tax rate. However, under the EVFTA agreement, frozen pork will be tax-exempt after seven years, processed foods after seven years, and the tax rate for chicken will gradually decrease to 0% in 10 years. This study will use qualitative analysis, synthesis, and inductive methods, with statistic data, examines experiences from Asian countries such as Thailand and China and meanings to Vietnam case of feeding wild pigs. Among present results is relating to wild pork meat and frozen pork processing in the case study of wild pigs in Northern provinces of Vietnam such as the Thai Nguyen region. And also, it describes the process of processing pork meat with chili sauce and frozen pork meat. Our study will present a feeding mechanism for wild pigs under semi-wild breeding conditions in the Thai Nguyen ecological environment. Asia, including Vietnam, has a good environment for feeding wild pigs and establishing pig farming. Our study has indicated researches and publications are needed for supporting exporting wild pigs and pork.

Occurrence, Antimicrobial Resistance and Molecular Diversity of Enterococcus faecium in Processed Pork Meat Products in Korea.

Because Enterococcus faecium is an important nosocomial pathogen and sentinel organism for tracking antimicrobial resistance, information on the contamination and antimicrobial resistance patterns of E. faecium in food are essential to public health and food safety. We analyzed the occurrence of E. faecium in retail pork meat products (n = 124), and antimicrobial resistance of 30 E. faecium isolates were examined against 14 antimicrobials using the broth dilution test and disc diffusion test. Rep-PCR-based molecular diversity was also analyzed using Deviersilab. The highest contamination of enterococci was observed for minced pork meat but most of the E. faecium was isolated from meatball-type frozen pork meat products (FP). Incidences of antimicrobial-resistant E. faecium against erythromycin, clindamycin and nitrofurantoin were 80%, 50% and 20%, respectively. No vancomycin-resistant enterococci were analyzed. Rep-PCR showed distinctive clusters with a similarity ≥ 98%, consisting of 18 E. faecium isolates from FP manufactured in seven companies. The analyzed data on the contamination and antimicrobial resistance patterns combined with molecular typing can be useful to derive risk management of antimicrobial-resistant enterococci in food.

Prediction of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids of various processed pork meats using improved hyperspectral imaging technique

Freezing, heating, and pickling are common processes for pork meats. Unsaturated fatty acids including monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids are indispensable nutrition beneficial to human’s health and growth. However, Unsaturated fatty acids are affected by processing methods. Hyperspectral imaging is a novel technique widely used for food quality and safety evaluation. In the current study, the contents of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids were assessed by Hyperspectral imaging. Optimal wavelengths were selected by the regression coefficients curves of partial least squares regression models. The least-squares support vector machine models established achieved a better coefficient of determination in the Monte Carlo validation set than the partial least squares regression models developed and the R2MV values for the least squares - support vector machine models based on selected optimal wavelengths were higher than 0.81. Finally, colour maps of the contents of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids were developed.

Multi-sensor integration approach based on hyperspectral imaging and electronic nose for quantitation of fat and peroxide value of pork meat.

The study assessed the feasibility of merging data acquired from hyperspectral imaging (HSI) and electronic nose (e-nose) to develop a robust method for the rapid prediction of intramuscular fat (IMF) and peroxide value (PV) of pork meat affected by temperature and NaCl treatments. Multivariate calibration models for prediction of IMF and PV using median spectra features (MSF) and image texture features (ITF) from HSI data and mean signal values (MSV) from e-nose signals were established based on support vector machine regression (SVMR). Optimum wavelengths highly related to IMF and PV were selected from the MSF and ITF. Next, recurring optimum wavelengths from the two feature groups were manually obtained and merged to constitute "combined attribute features" (CAF) which yielded acceptable results with (Rc2 = 0.877, 0.891; RMSEC = 2.410, 1.109; Rp2 = 0.790, 0.858; RMSEP = 3.611, 2.013) respectively for IMF and PV. MSV yielded relatively low results with (Rc2 = 0.783, 0.877; RMSEC = 4.591, 0.653; Rp2 = 0.704, 0.797; RMSEP = 3.991, 0.760) respectively for IMF and PV. Finally, data fusion of CAF and MSV was performed which yielded relatively improved prediction results with (Rc2 = 0.936, 0.955; RMSEC = 1.209, 0.997; Rp2 = 0.895, 0.901; RMSEP = 2.099, 1.008) respectively for IMF and PV. The results obtained demonstrate that it is feasible to mutually integrate spectral and image features with volatile information to quantitatively monitor IMF and PV in processed pork meat. Graphical abstract.

Microarray based genetic profiling of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from abattoir byproducts of pork origin.

Many parts of pork meat processing are currently not used for human consumption in Switzerland, although they are of great nutritional value. Therefore, data on the occurrence of pathogenic organisms on byproducts is extremely scarce and the prevalence and population structure of Staphylococcus aureus on meat processing sidestreams is unknown. Hence, abattoir byproducts of pork origin including ear, forefoot, heart, intestine, liver, rib bone, sternum, bladder, stomach, hind foot and tongue originating from six abattoirs were screened for S. aureus. The obtained isolates were investigated by spa typing and DNA microarray analysis to reveal their genomic profile and population structure. The prevalence of S. aureus was generally low with a mean of 8%. In total, 40 S. aureus strains were detected and assigned to 12 spa types (t015, t1491, t1778, t091, t337, t899, t2922, t7439, t1333, t208, t4049, t034) and seven clonal complexes (CC1, CC7, CC9, CC30, CC45, CC49, CC398). Detected enterotoxin genes included sea, seb, sec, seh, sel and egc encoded toxin genes seg, sei, sem, sen, seo, and seu. None of the isolates harbored genes conferring methicillin resistance, but blaZ/I/R genes causing penicillin resistance were frequently found. In addition, strains from CC398 exhibited tetM and tetK, conferring tetracycline resistance. Similarity calculations based on microarray profiles revealed no association of clonal complexes with particular body parts, but revealed a certain correspondence of clonal complex and originating abattoir.

The Impact of Innovation on the Global Competitiveness of Polish Meat and Dairy Enterprises

The aim of the study was to analyse innovations implemented in the milk and meat industries, and their impact on increasing competitiveness. The study showed that the 2010-12 period saw the most product and process innovations being introduced. On the other hand, innovations in marketing were found to be more popular in 2013. Three groups of similar innovations were distinguished. The milk industry stood out when it comes to the extent of innovations implemented. Fewer innovations were found in the poultry meat industry. Beef and pork meat processing was the least innovative. The innovativeness of enterprises is greater with larger numbers of employees and the increase in scope of their field of operation. The implementation of innovations resulted in: improvement of the quality of goods (services), increase in stock, productive capabilities and revenues from sales, emergence of new markets, increase in competitiveness and prestige of the firm. Those are confirmed by the very good performance of foreign trade and better competitiveness rates of Polish meat producers.

Prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii DNA in Processed Pork Meat.

Toxoplasma gondii infection may be attributed to the ingestion of pork meat and contaminated water. In southern Brazil, the prevalence of blindness caused by T. gondii is the highest in the world. Our purpose is to determine the frequency of T. gondii DNA in commercial fresh sausage and cured salami samples from Rio Grande do Sul state, south of Brazil. A total of 118 samples (sausage and salami) from 8 different producers were collected and DNA was extracted. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) technique was performed to detect T. gondii DNA using B1 marker. The frequency of T. gondii DNA among the total number of samples (sausage and salami) was 39% (46/118). Among these, a higher frequency of positivity was observed in the sausage samples (47.5%) when compared with the salami samples (17%). However, the mean parasite concentration was significantly higher in the salami samples. The prevalence of T. gondii DNA in fresh sausage and cured salami may indicate that infected pigs may be an important source of infections and a public health hazard to be considered.

Protein content evaluation of processed pork meats based on a novel single shot (snapshot) hyperspectral imaging sensor

Protein is an important nutrient for people diet, and protein content is one of the most vital properties in quality assessment of pork meat. The potential of line-scanning based hyperspectral imaging (HSI) has been proved to be able to assess the protein content of meat, however quality of images obtained from line-scanning HSI is affected by sample transformation conditions. A novel single shot (snapshot) HSI sensor was employed to evaluate the protein content of numerous processed pork meat by using back propagation - neural network (BP-NN) and partial least squares regression (PLSR) predictive models. The results of BP-NN were better than that of PLSR. The best spectral profile was selected from reflectance, absorbance, and Kubelka–Munk (K–M) spectra by comparing the performances of their BP-NN models. The BP-NN model combined with absorbance spectra showed the best performance for evaluating the protein content of various processed pork meats with determination coefficient of cross-validation set (R2CV) = 0.8318, and root mean square error of cross-validation set (RMSECV) = 8.38 mg/g, respectively. Results indicated the feasibility of determining the protein content of pork meats by means of single shot HSI.

Saúde Animal, Biossegurança e Segurança dos alimentos

Pork meat and processed pork meat products may carry some hazards that threaten the consumer’s health. These hazards are related with animal health or with the way in which the raw materials are manipulated during slaughtering and manufacturing until the consumption. Substances having anabolic effects, the residues of veterinary drugs and chemical contaminants, some of them with origin in animal production but others produced during the transformation processes should be considered among chemical hazards. Concerning biological hazards, we can mention some parasites like Toxoplasma gondii, Trichinella spiralis, Taenia solium and also some bacteria like Salmonella spp., Campylobacter spp., Yersinia enterocolitica and Listeria monocytogenes. The physicochemical characteristics of fresh meat further facilitate the growth of various microorganisms, other than those mentioned above, which turns it into a highly perishable product. Several transformation processes of the raw material, provide different food products to consumers and constitute ways to increase its shelf-life. Drying, fermentation and cure are among these processing methods. In Portugal there is a wide variety of processed meat products, such as Chourico, Paio, Presunto, Salsichao and Catalao many of them manufactured according to traditional techniques of their regions of origin. Some of these products have been studied at the Universidade de Evora. Some results, which show the favourable effect of a range of transformation processes in controlling some of the mentioned biological hazards, will be presented.

Hepatitis E: the current state of play

The hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a major cause of acute hepatitis globally. Genotypes 1 and 2 (G1 and G2) are obligate human pathogens transmitted faeco-orally, leading to epidemics in developing countries. In contrast, genotypes 3 and 4 (G3 and G4) have a wider host range, including humans, but are primarily porcine viruses and are transmitted from animals to humans as a food-borne zoonosis when meat from an infected animal is consumed. HEV is increasingly recognised as a problem in developed countries, including countries in Europe. G3 HEV is now the most common cause of acute viral hepatitis in the UK and cases continue to rise. The majority of these infections are acquired within the UK and thought to be from insufficiently cooked meat, predominantly processed pork meat. Previously thought to only cause self-limiting disease, HEV infection can persist in immunosuppressed patients, which may lead to chronic hepatitis and the rapid development of cirrhosis. Of particular interest to the transfusion community has been the possibility of transfusion-transmitted HEV, which has been reported from countries classically considered HEV-endemic but also non-endemic countries in Europe and Japan. This has prompted some countries to introduce screening for HEV in blood donations.

Implications of Electrical Impedance-Based Microbiological Technology in Pork Meat Processing Industry for the Rapid Detection and Quantification of Salmonella Spp.

Implications of Electrical Impedance-Based Microbiological Technology in Pork Meat Processing Industry for the Rapid Detection and Quantification of Salmonella Spp.

Chemical spoilage extent traceability of two kinds of processed pork meats using one multispectral system developed by hyperspectral imaging combined with effective variable selection methods.

The feasibility of hyperspectral imaging (HSI) (400-1000nm) for tracing the chemical spoilage extent of the raw meat used for two kinds of processed meats was investigated. Calibration models established separately for salted and cooked meats using full wavebands showed good results with the determination coefficient in prediction (R2P) of 0.887 and 0.832, respectively. For simplifying the calibration models, two variable selection methods were used and compared. The results showed that genetic algorithm-partial least squares (GA-PLS) with as much continuous wavebands selected as possible always had better performance. The potential of HSI to develop one multispectral system for simultaneously tracing the chemical spoilage extent of the two kinds of processed meats was also studied. Good result with an R2P of 0.854 was obtained using GA-PLS as the dimension reduction method, which was thus used to visualize total volatile base nitrogen (TVB-N) contents corresponding to each pixel of the image.

The contribution of processed pork meat products to total salt intake in the diet

Consumption of processed meats is reported to be the second largest contributor to total dietary sodium intake. This study aims to describe the contribution of commonly consumed processed pork products to total salt intake. A large variation was found in the sodium content between similar products. Sodium content (mg/100g) for bacon ranged from 558 to 1570, russians from 762 to 1403, viennas from 480 to 1340 and ham from 696 to 1360 respectively. When converting sodium content from 100g to serving size, different products contributed the most sodium to the diet. A serving size of brawn (125g uncooked) will contribute on average 983mg sodium to total sodium intake. Pork bangers will contribute the lowest amount of sodium (∼400mg) to the diet (∼4% of RDI). Reported daily intake are smaller than indicated serving sizes and the contribution of processed meat to sodium intake can be predicted to be lesser than expected.

Resistance to Biocides in Listeria monocytogenes Collected in Meat-Processing Environments.

The emergence of microorganisms exerting resistance to biocides is a challenge to meat-processing environments. Bacteria can be intrinsically resistant to biocides but resistance can also be acquired by adaptation to their sub-lethal concentrations. Moreover, the presence of biocide resistance determinants, which is closely linked to antibiotic resistance determinants, could lead to co-selection during disinfection practices along the food chain, and select cross-resistant foodborne pathogens. The purpose of this work was to test the resistance of wild strains of Listeria monocytogenes, isolated from pork meat processing plants, toward benzalkonium chloride (BC), used as proxy of quaternary ammonium compounds. Furthermore, the expression of two non-specific efflux pumps genes (lde and mdrL) under biocide exposure was evaluated. L. monocytogenes were isolated from five processing plants located in the Veneto region (northeast of Italy) before and after cleaning and disinfection (C&D) procedures. A total of 45 strains were collected: 36 strains before and nine after the C&D procedures. Collected strains were typed according to MLST and ERIC profiles. Strains sampled in the same site, isolated before, and after the C&D procedures and displaying the same MLST and ERIC profiles were tested for their sensitivity to different concentrations of BC, in a time course assay. The expression of non-specific efflux pumps was evaluated at each time point by qPCR using tufA gene as housekeeping. A differential expression of the two investigated genes was observed: lde was found to be more expressed by the strains isolated before C&D procedures while its expression was dose-dependent in the case of the post C&D procedures strain. On the contrary, the expression of mdrL was inhibited under low biocidal stress (10 ppm BC) and enhanced in the presence of high stress (100 ppm BC). These findings suggests a possible role for C&D procedures to select L. monocytogenes persisters, pointing out the importance of dealing with the identification of risk factors in food plants sanification procedures that might select more tolerant strains.

English

We tracked Listeria monocytogenes as a microbiological risk factor in pork processing plants. The five plants analyzed were located in main areas for meat processing in Colombia. Prevalence of L. monocytogenes was 11.46% (36/314), represented by serotypes 4b (6/36, 16.7%), 4d/4e (10/36, 27.8%), 4b/4d/4e (4/36; 11.1%), 3a (3/36, 8.3%), 3c (1/36, 2.8) and 1/2c/3c (9/36, 25%); 4/36 isolates (11.1%) were assumed as possible serotypes 4ab or 7. There was no tolerance to per-acetic acid and only 9/36 (25%) surface-isolates displayed tolerance (0.5-2% (v/v)) to alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride. The risk factors analysis showed variations for each processing plant and found that surface and equipment had a higher degree of contamination, with the chopper and cutter at the highest risk. The general prevalence of L. monocytogenes in pork meat processing plants was 11.46%. All these results demonstrate deficiencies in the implementation and monitoring of cleaning and disinfection programs. Key words: Risk factors, L. monocytogenes, meat products, pork meat processing plants.&nbsp

An Industry Perspective on the Pork Meat Processing of CALIXTRA’S Food Products<SUP>1</SUP>

The Philippines’ food processing sector is the most dominant manufacturing sector in the country. This study aims to understand and evaluate the different factors which affects the pork meat processing of Calixtra’s Food Products, and to incorporate the determined factors in creating an industry perspective of the pork meat processing industrythat would serve as a guide to those who wants to venture in this type of business. Based on the results of the study, the researchers observed that the main problems faced by the industry are the seasonality, advertising, and storage of the products. For small-scale processors, advertising is not that important. They mainly rely on the creation ofpatrons and established consumers. The researchers recommended that the processors should be located near the city with diversified products to cope with the very high competition in the market.

Antibiotic susceptibility and molecular typing of Enterococcus faecalis from retail pork meat products in Korea

Enterococci have been used as starter cultures and probiotics. They also have been considered as indicator organisms for antibiotic resistance due to their ability to harbor and to easily acquire antibiotic resistance. This study aimed to show the antimicrobial resistance profiles and genotyping of Enterococcus faecalis in retail pork meat products in Korea. Enterococcus spp. were analyzed for 124 collected samples, which included minced pork meat, marinated pork meat with soy sauce or kochujang (fermented hot pepper-soybean paste), and frozen processed pork meat products. The isolates of E. faecalis (n=36) were resistant to tetracycline (58.3%), erythromycin (11.1%), and nitrofurantoin (2.8%). No vancomycin resistant enterococci were observed in the present study. Most of the E. faecalis isolates were sensitive to all antibiotics or resistant to single antibiotics. As a result of the automated repetitive-sequence-based PCR (rep-PCR), which was used as an approach for genotyping enterococci, 7 out of 36 isolates of E. faecalis were assigned to one cluster with a similarity >95%, and all isolates were found to have originated from minced pork meat, suggesting that this clone might circulate in minced pork meat products. Given the importance of antimicrobial resistance of enterococci in food safety as well as in public health, our results on the occurrence, antimicrobial resistance, and genotyping could provide useful information to derive risk management options.

돈육 가공공정 중 돈육에 오염된 Listeria monocytogenes의 전이율 분석

Wild type Listeria monocytogenes 균주에 오염된 돈육으로부터 다른 돈육, 컨베이어벨트, 스테인리스 스틸로 일정시간(30, 60, 120분)동안 접촉시킨 후 <TEX>$5^{\circ}C$</TEX>와 <TEX>$10^{\circ}C$</TEX>에서 각각의 전이율을 조하였다. <TEX>$5^{\circ}C$</TEX>에서 돈육에서 돈육으로 L. monocytogenes의 평균 전이율은 30분에서 120분으로 시간이 지남에 따라 0.02%에서 0.42%로 증가하였고, 평균 전이율은 0.284%로 나타났다. 돈육에서 컨베이어 벨트와 스테인리스 스틸로의 평균 전이율은 30분 후 각각 0.05%, 0.002%의 전이율을 나타냈으나 120분 후에는 더욱 감소하여 0.013%, 0.0003%를 나타내었다(p < 0.05). 두 조건 모두 30분에서 가장 높은 전이율을 보였으나 120분 후에는 감소하였다. <TEX>$10^{\circ}C$</TEX>에서 돈육, 컨베이어벨트, 스테인리스 스틸 모두 60분에서 가장 높은 전이율을 나타냈지만 120분에서는 감소하였다. 반면에 식품접촉면에서 돈육으로의 전이율은 돈육에서 식품접촉면으로의 전이율 보다 높게 나타났다(p < 0.01). 시간대별로는 30분이 가장 높았으며, 시간의 경과에 따라 감소하였고 컨베이어벨트가 스테인리스 스틸보다 전이율이 높았다(p < 0.05). 상기의 결과로부터 돈육 공정과정의 오염원에 대한 미생물학적 계량모델을 제시하여 예측모델을 검증한 결과, 대부분의 전이율 예측모델이 신뢰도가 높게 나타났으며, 개발된 예측 모델은 교차오염 발생을 예방할 수 있을 것으로 기대된다. In this study, the transfer rate of wild type Listeria mon, ytogenes (LM) was investigated to establish the standard of safety management during pork meat pr, essing for meat to meat and meat to food contact surfaces contamination at 5 and <TEX>$10^{\circ}C$</TEX>. The transfer rate of LM from meat to meat during the pr, essing increased from 0.02% after 30 min to 0.42% after 120 min at <TEX>$5^{\circ}C$</TEX>, while for conveyor belt and stainless steel, it decreased from 0.015% and 0.013% after 30 min to 0.002% and 0.0003% after 120 min at <TEX>$5^{\circ}C$</TEX>, respectively (p < 0.05). When temperature increased to <TEX>$10^{\circ}C$</TEX>, the transfer rates of LM from meat to meat, conveyor belt and stainless steel were the highest at 60 min exposure, and all decreased after 120 min. In reverse, the transfer rate from food contact surface to pork meat was significantly higher than that from pork meat to food contact surface (p < 0.01). Also, the transfer rate to conveyor belt was significantly higher than stainless steel (p < 0.05) and it was highest at 30 min exposure time in both 5 and <TEX>$10^{\circ}C$</TEX>. This study indicates that the transfer and adherence rates of LM are influenced by the contact time and temperature. Consequently, these results were utilized to develop a predictive model with a high level of confidence which can lead to prevent cross-contamination during pork meat processing.

Influence of Temperature and Heat Treatment Regime on Chemical Properties of Pork Meat

The real importance of meat in human nutrition has been defined during the last century. Professional and scientific publications of the twentieth century are often written about the nutritional value of meat. Thermal processing of meat is as old as civilization itself. Meat drying as a procedure for a longer shelf life, probably first appeared as a result of some accident in which the fresh meat has been exposed to heat. The first works about the problems of heat treatment of pork were published in the 1950s.The aim of this paper was to investigate the effect of temperature and different methods of heat treatment on chemical properties of processed pork meat. To determine the optimal conditions for various heat treatment processes, in this paper, meat processing was performed at different temperatures, and set the temperature range from 51 ºC to 100 ºC. Therefore, the meat is processed by dry heat treatment (roasting) and cooking in water (at atmospheric pressure). Then, the change of chemical composition of processed meat was noted (moisture content, ash, fat, protein, micronutrients).