Themain objective of the studywas to assess the effect of steamvacuumpasteurisation on carcass contamination
with focus on Escherichia coli, Enterobacteriaceae and total plate count (TPC). Additionally, the effect of an addi-
tional tryptone soy agar (TSA) step for resuscitation of Enterobacteriaceae after steamvacuumpasteurisationwas
investigated. Steamvacuumpasteurisationwas applied at a temperature of N82 °C for a duration of 10 s on sheep
and lamb carcasses (n= 120). Samples were taken immediately: i) after trimming just before the use of steam
vacuum and ii) after use of steam vacuum. Nordic Committee on Food Analysismethods were used inmicrobial
analyses. The differences in log reduction were found significant for all of the three microorganisms (p b 0.05).
For TPC, the general reduction was a 0.65 log10 in the number of colony forming units (CFU) per cm2
.For
E. coli, the median reduction effect on carcasses positive before decontamination was 1.1 log10 CFU/cm2
.A
large variability of the effect was however found, with 50% of the figures ranging from a 0.24 to 1.62 log10
CFU/cm2
reduction and a 10–90% range of 0–2.1. The number of positive carcasses with Enterobacteriaceae
after steam vacuum pasteurisation was higher in samples where TSA + violet red bile glucose agar (VRBGA)
was used compared to samples where only VRBGA was used (p b 0.01). Steam vacuum pasteurisation was
found efficient in reducing the total count, read as TPC, as well as the level of E. coli and Enterobacteriacea