Documentation of 50% water conservation in a single process at a beef abattoir.

Beef slaughter is water intensive due to stringent food safety requirements. We conducted a study at a commercial beef processor to demonstrate water conservation by modifying the mechanical head wash. We documented the initial nozzle configuration (112 nozzles), water pressure (275kPa), and flowrate (152L/head washed), then developed a 3-D CAD model to identify regions of water use redundancy. The mechanical head wash was modified by reducing nozzle count (72), decreasing pressure (138kPa) and flowrate (78.4L/head). To objectively document visual cleansing, heads were photographed at three locations post decapitation: 1) prior to manual wash, 2) prior to entering, and 3) upon exit of the mechanical head wash. Changes in red saturation between stations 1 and 3 provided an objective measure of relative cleanliness. Prior to altering operating parameters, the post-wash red saturation was 5%; after modification this increased slightly to 7.5%. Water use was reduced by 48.4% without altering head cleanliness acceptance.

Evaluation of management techniques to conserve water in a mechanical head wash blood removal system.

This research objectively evaluated methods to conserve water in a mechanical beef head wash system. Digital images of pre-wash and post-wash beef heads were analyzed to quantify the percentage change in red saturation of the image, which was used as an objective measure of cleanliness. Three types of nozzles (fan, three-hole, venturi) and three water pressures (344, 516, 689kPa) were evaluated in a two-way treatment structure. An interaction (P=0.07) was observed between water pressure and nozzle type; the change in red saturation increased as pressure decreased for fan and three-hole nozzles which contrasted with venturi nozzles. The fan nozzle×516kPa pressure treatment used 25L of water per head washed and was used to evaluate the effect of three water temperatures (15, 38, 57°C). Water temperature did not impact (P=0.21) change in red saturation. Reducing water wastage and minimizing the use of heated water could have positive economic benefits to the beef processor.

Conservation of water for washing beef heads at harvest.

The objective of this research was to develop methods to conserve water necessary to cleanse beef heads prior to USDA-FSIS inspection. This was to be accomplished by establishing a baseline for the minimum amount of water necessary to adequately wash a head and application of image analysis to provide an objective measure of head cleaning. Twenty-one beef heads were manually washed during the harvest process. An average 18.75 L (2.49 SD) and a maximum of 23.88 L were required to cleanse the heads to USDA-FSIS standards. Digital images were captured before and after manual washing then evaluated for percentage red saturation using commercially available image analysis software. A decaying exponential curve extracted from these data indicated that as wash water increased beyond 20 L the impact on red saturation decreased. At 4 sigma from the mean of 18.75 L, red saturation is 16.0 percent, at which logistic regression analysis indicates 99.994 percent of heads would be accepted for inspection, or less than 1 head in 15,000 would be rejected. Reducing to 3 sigma would increase red saturation to 27.6 percent, for which 99.730 percent of heads likely would be accepted (less than 1 in 370 would be rejected).