Final Report of an Audit Conducted in the People's Republic of China to Evaluate Poultry Meat Inspection System and Establishments Producing Stuffed Grain Products
4 Slaughter and Post-Mortem
The article 33 of the Administrative Measures for Supervision of Inspection and Quarantine of Import and Export Meat Products (Order of AQSIQ No. 136) specify that the Inspection and Quarantine Authorities may send official veterinarians to perform supervision management of export meat producers. The auditors observed all carcasses were subjected to official inspection.
MOA and CIQ are responsible for the inspection and the verification tasks in the slaughter establishments. MOA officials' responsibilities are essentially oriented towards performing the inspection of the carcasses and the parts. CIQ officials complete all food safety related tasks to verify operator's control of the HACCP plan and pre-requisite programs. According to interviewed officials, MOA and CIQ communicate and work together in case of non-compliant situations.
In both slaughter establishments audited, MOA veterinarians were responsible to perform a complete post-mortem inspection of all the carcass exterior, abdominal cavity and corresponding viscera. The operators provide competent plant employees as helpers. A carcass-by-carcass inspection is performed at the inspection station. MOA officials verify the exterior carcass surface and the corresponding viscera. If abnormal localized and generalized conditions are detected, the MOA officials can seize, condemn or remove the carcass/viscera from the evisceration line for further inspection by the MOA supervisor or off-line reprocessing.
As described in Specification of Good Manufacture Practice for Fresh and Frozen Meat Processing (GB/T 20575-2006, part 9.2.11 g), the operator promptly removes carcass faeces and other contaminants during slaughtering. One of the slaughter establishments audited first trimmed the contamination then rinsed the carcass with water. The other only rinsed immediately the contaminated carcass with water. If the contamination is judged severe by the MOA official, the carcass and its parts are condemned. During the audit, it was observed that the contamination of the carcasses was minimal and the off-line reprocessing was immediately performed with no accumulation of carcasses at the reprocessing station.
An MOA official inspects the abdominal cavity at the second inspection station. If abnormal localized and generalized conditions are detected, the MOA officials can seize, condemn or remove the carcass from the evisceration line for further inspection by the MOA supervisor.
The inspection of the Finished Product Standards (FPS) is performed by the designated operator employees at the pre-chiller inspection station. The FPS includes the inspection of the carcass dressing defects as the fecal and ingesta contamination, the general disease abnormalities and other carcass defects (bruising, blood, feather pins). This inspection station is identified as a CCP by the operator with the criteria to check every carcass for zero tolerance for fecal and ingesta contamination before the carcasses enter the chiller.
Conclusion:
The post-mortem inspection was completed as described in the Poultry Slaughter Quarantine Procedure (Nong Yi Fa [2010] No. 27).
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