Provincial Condemnation
Manitoba's Meat Hygiene Inspection Program at provincial abattoirs contributes to the surveillance of key food safety, animal health and animal welfare issues in provincial livestock and poultry populations.
All animals and carcasses at provincial abattoirs are inspected and documented, including reasons why a live animal, whole carcass or parts of a carcass are considered unfit for human consumption.
Whole carcasses are condemned when the entire product (carcass and all contents) is deemed unfit for human consumption. Carcasses can be partially condemned when specific body parts are deemed unfit for human consumption. However, the remaining carcass (and its contents) is still safe for human consumption.
Records are analyzed by the Animal Health and Welfare and Food Safety and Inspection branches on a quarterly basis to determine the most common reasons for condemnation and whether significant changes in the number and types of condemnations have occurred.
Information is published in the dashboards below.
Whole and partial condemnations in five years (except poultry)
Whole condemnations for poultry in five years
Whole carcass condemnations yearly
Whole carcass condemnations quarterly
Partial condemnations quarterly
These dashboards can be used by abattoir operators, veterinarians, animal owners and the general public to obtain specific information as follows:
Operators
Trends allow operators to identify avoidable losses due to contamination.
Contamination posses a potential risk to human health and incurs additional cost such as reduced:
- slaughter line speed to handle contamination
- carcass value due to excess trimming or loss of entire carcass
- value of by-products (i.e. hides)
Losses can be minimized or prevented by requesting producers to ship clean animals for slaughter, by keeping animals in clean pens, using clean hands and tools for dressing carcasses, and carefully removing the intact gastrointestinal contents from the opened carcass.
Producers
Trends allow producers to identify diseases, which could avoid production losses if identified and managed at the farm or barn in early stages. For example, losses due to tail bites in pigs, umbilical infections, liver flukes, etc.
Producers could work with their herd veterinarian and nutritionists to implement changes in the animal environment and management as needed (diet, housing, etc.) to decrease or prevent future losses.
Veterinarians
Trends help veterinarians identify early signs of reportable diseases, foreign animal diseases, new emerging diseases and diseases of economic importance or of zoonotic potential (disease transmissible to humans from animals).
The data could be used to interpret the overall health status of animals in the province, which could indicate areas requiring veterinary attention and animal management.
Public
Trends show the public the consumer meat preferences and number of animals processed and consumed in Manitoba.
Contact
For more information, please contact the Chief Veterinary Office or call 204-945-7663 in Winnipeg.
