Novel Meat Meal and Cake Handling to Prevent Salmonella Contamination and Growth

Summary

​A large proportion of the meat meal produced in Australia is used as raw material by pet food processors and stockfeedmanufacturers. All feed producers, especially those supplying to the poultry industry, require a very low or zero incidence of Salmonella in the meat meal that they use as raw material. Conditions in the cake and meal handling equipment during the production of meat meal using a typical dry rendering process are often conducive to Salmonella growth. In particular the equipment immediately after the presses and at the mills and their discharge screws is hard to clean and can often harbour condensation as hot cake and meal cools. The Australian Renderers’ Association (ARA) auditing process, and industry surveys by ARA and CSIRO, has identified that these areas often have a high incidence of Salmonella positive meal present and that this is a common problem across the
rendering industry. 
This Plant Initiated Project was to develop and trial some alternate material handling systems not previously used for this purpose in an attempt to solve this common problem.