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Abstract
Pre-harvest Salmonella interventions have the potential of reducing pathogen contamination entering poultry processing plants and in US processing plants, 26 L of water is used to process each bird. Poultry processing wastewater (PPW) loading exiting scalder tanks was evaluated: hard vs. soft scalding, scalding immersion time and temperature separately, and presence of residual blood. Results indicate immersion time impacted PPW more than temperature and PPW significantly decreased with use of sequential tanks. Five experiments evaluated cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) and acidic drinking water treatments for water usage and Salmonella retention following feed and water withdrawal. Results indicate CPC and most acidic water treatments were not effective in Salmonella reduction for crops and ceca post withdrawal. In conclusion for both studies, immersion time appears to a major indicator for predicting PPW loading in scalder tanks and 50 ppm hydrogen peroxide with citric acid (pH= 5.0) may be a potential pre-harvest Salmonella intervention.