Food Protection Trends - September/October 2017 - 316

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLE
Food Protection Trends, Vol 37, No. 5, p. 316-331
Copyright© 2017, International Association for Food Protection
6200 Aurora Ave., Suite 200W, Des Moines, IA 50322-2864

Karen Fong,1 Justin Falardeau,1 Karen Rideout,2,3
Lynn Wilcott,2 Daniel Fong2,3 and Siyun Wang1*
Food, Nutrition and Health, Faculty of Land and Food Systems, The
University of British Columbia, 2205 East Mall, Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z4
2
Environmental Health Services, British Columbia Centre for Disease
Control, 655 - 12th Ave. W., Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
V5Z 4R4
3
National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health, 200 - 601
W. Broadway, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V5Z 4C2
1

Opinions of Provincial Food Safety Specialists
on Addressing Canadian Beef Processing Risks
ABSTRACT
Outbreaks associated with microbial pathogens in the
Canadian beef industry have raised awareness regarding
pathogen dissemination throughout the farm-to-fork
continuum. Canadian beef processing represents a
conjoined effort by federally-licensed and provinciallylicensed processing establishments. Although federal
facilities must adhere to rigorous standards because of
the large-scale distribution of beef, they do not necessarily
correlate with the standards of provincial facilities, which
are governed by provincial regulatory bodies. This could
lead to discrepancies in regulation and perceptions of risk
between provinces.
Six meat safety experts from the Ministries of Agriculture or Health from five Canadian provinces were
interviewed about risks, risk mitigation strategies, and
limitations within these strategies throughout all stages
of beef production. The most commonly identified risk was
temperature abuse, identified by all five provinces. Existing
policy and regulation, along with proper inspection and
standardized procedures, served as dominant factors in

mitigating risks. The experts also identified a variety of
limitations within the current mitigation strategies, including a lack of standardized procedures within and between
provinces, the absence of HACCP requirements, and lack
of frequent inspection. Based on these accounts, it is
concluded that provincial processing facilities require additional efforts (e.g., enhanced inspection, continual training,
greater information sharing) to streamline current risk
mitigation practices.

INTRODUCTION
Beef represents approximately 10% of Canada's Agrifood exports, and Canada was the world's seventh largest
exporter of beef in 2014 (11). Approximately 82, 240 farms
and ranches house 11.92 million beef cattle nationally, with
approximately 41% of this total bred in Alberta (1). Notably,
Canada produces approximately $9.8 billion Canadian
dollars (CAD) worth of beef products annually, considerably
more than the pork ($3.4 billion CAD) and chicken ($2.4
billion CAD) industries' annual revenues (1, 2). On the other
hand, beef products have also been implicated in a greater

*Author for correspondence: Telephone: +1 604.822.1734; Fax: +1 604.822.5143; E-mail: siyun.wang@ubc.ca

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Food Protection Trends September/October

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