Data-Mining Poultry Processing Bio-Mapping Counts of Pathogens and Indicator Organisms for Food Safety Management Decision Making

Bio-mapping studies play an important role, as the data collected can be managed and analyzed in multiple ways to look at process trends, find explanations about the effect of process changes, activate a root cause analysis for events, and even compile performance data to demonstrate to inspection authorities or auditors the effect of certain decisions made on a daily basis and their effects over time in commercial settings not only from the food safety perspective but also from the production side. This study presents an alternative analysis of bio-mapping data collected throughout several months in a commercial poultry processing operation as described in the article “Bio-Mapping Indicators and Pathogen Loads in a Commercial Broiler Processing Facility Operating with High and Low Antimicrobial Interventions”. The conducted analysis identifies the processing shift effect on microbial loads, attempts to find correlation between microbial indicators data and pathogens loads, and identifies novel visualization approaches and conducts distribution analysis for microbial indicators and pathogens in a commercial poultry processing facility. From the data analyzed, a greater number of locations were statistically different between shifts under reduced levels of chemical interventions with higher means at the second shift for both indicators and pathogens levels. Minimal to negligible correlation was found when comparing aerobic counts and Enterobacteriaceae counts with Salmonella levels, with significant variability between sampling locations. Distribution analysis and visualization as a bio-map of the process resulted in a clear bimodality in reduced chemical conditions for multiple locations mostly explained by shift effect. The development and use of bio-mapping data, including proper data visualization, improves the tools needed for ongoing decision making in food safety systems.