Risk Priority Number: A Measuring Instrument for Hygienic Management on Broiler Farms, Reflecting Their Campylobacter Status

Monika Matt, Hans Peter Stüger and Peter Pless
Additional contact information
Monika Matt: Department for Data, Statistics, Risk Assessment, Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, Technikerstr. 70, Innsbruck 6020, Austria
Hans Peter Stüger: Department for Data, Statistics, Risk Assessment, Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, Beethovenstr. 6, Graz 8010, Austria
Peter Pless: Veterinary Administration, Styrian Government, Friedrichgasse 9, Graz 8010, Austria

Agriculture, 2013, vol. 3, issue 4, 1-15

Abstract: Hygiene management is essential for rearing Campylobacter free broiler flocks. In this study, several hygiene factors (e.g., thinning, water supply, stable cloths, stable condition, stable environment, etc .) are categorized and aggregated in a developed risk priority number (RPN). This number is measuring the quality of hygiene management of a broiler farm with one single value (range: 801–4005 points), the higher the RPN, the better is the hygiene status. The distribution of the values is left skewed and none of the 53 examined Austrian broiler farms reached the maximum. Cecal samples ( n = 610) from broilers at the point of slaughter determined the Campylobacter status of the farms. Farms with a high RPN consistently produced more Campylobacter free batches than farms with a low RPN. Ranking of the broiler farms based on their RPN was significantly correlated with their microbiological results for Campylobacter detection (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 0.646). The risk priority number is an easy tool for the assessment and measurement of the hygiene management system at a broiler farm. Besides the educational benefits of the RPN, benchmarking against the mean value or the maximum is possible.

Keywords: Campylobacter; control options; hygiene management; broiler farms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/3/4/700/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/3/4/700/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:3:y:2013:i:4:p:700-714:d:29637

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().