The personal and general hygiene practices in the deboning room of a high throughput red meat abattoir

Food handling facilities are under increased consumer and regulatory pressures to improve the micro-biological safety of perishable raw and ready-to-eat commodities. In this study workers from a deboning room of a high throughput abattoir were interviewed by means of a structured questionnaire to ascertain the knowledge, attitude, beliefs and practices regarding personal and general hygiene applied specifically in the deboning room. Basic hygiene practices were found to be in place and the workers adhered to the majority of these. The results, however, highlighted a need for improved communication between management and workers as well as a need for more training in personal and general hygiene. Although basic personal and hygiene practices such as the wearing of overalls and gumboots, as well as the cleaning and disinfection of equipment are adhered to, they need to be optimised in order to be effective. It is therefore advisable for all the requirements pertaining to personal and general hygiene to be re-evaluated, implemented and monitored by management to ensure that contamination of the final product by the workers inside the deboning room is minimized.