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A survey of process hygiene in the Sri Lanka prawn industry
Author(s) -
Sumner John L.,
Samaraweera Indrani,
Jayaweera Vinodini,
Fonseka Gamini
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
journal of the science of food and agriculture
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1097-0010
pISSN - 0022-5142
DOI - 10.1002/jsfa.2740330819
Subject(s) - prawn , sri lanka , hygiene , toxicology , veterinary medicine , fishery , food science , environmental science , biology , medicine , environmental planning , pathology , tanzania
A survey of process hygiene in the Sri Lanka prawn industry has shown that incoming raw materials had extremely high bacterial loadings, about 50% of samples analysed having total counts in excess of 10 7 g −1 . Although deheading, washing and freezing reduced this loading, total bacterial counts on final products were often in the range 10 6 ‐10 7 g −1 . Staphyloccocus aureus often exceeded 10 2 g −1 though most samples had levels of Escherichia coli of < 6 g −1 . Of 262 personnel in export prawn plants in Sri Lanka, 137 (52%) were found to carry S. aureus on their fingers; between companies the prevalence of S. aureus ranged from 22–92%. Although five companies provided sanitiser hand‐dips this was found to be ineffective for the control of S. aureus. In addition, provision of hand‐washing facilities, protective clothing and toilet facilities was inadequate. Of the 15 export plants surveyed, only five were found to have a process which was adequately controlled. The most common process defects included inadequate chilling of prawns following the several washing stages, use of block ice to chill prawns, high prawn:ice ratios, and cross contamination between processed and raw products.