More hygiene in the pigsty - stinking boar on the trail

Stock Meyer Wissenschaftspreis 2013 - Two first prizes with a total 20.000 euros for works to improve food safety

The meat from uncastrated boars may begin to stink in the pan - really bad, like a mixture of sweat, urine and feces. CAUSE include sex hormones in some male animals for slaughter. So far there is no rapid analytical method to weed out those carcasses - except the human nose. For developing a new reference method, the two food chemist Dr. Jochen Fischer received (University of Bonn) and Dr. Paul Elsinghorst (University of Bonn, Medical Service of the Armed Forces) a doped 10.000 euros Science Award of the Heinrich Stock Meyer Foundation.

Another first prize receives the vet Dr. Henrike Hunter (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine). In her doctoral thesis she investigated systematically different risk factors for pleural infections in pigs. They took in their case-control study, the extensive information database for carcase pathology and could demonstrate that postural causes can be detected early using this information. Thus, preventive measures can be implemented quickly and purposefully on the operating level - and this is in keeping with the animal welfare aspect and the efforts to improve hygiene in the stocks, and finally the safety of food.

The Stock Meyer Science Award was under the 54. Workshop on food hygiene 26. September 2013 awarded in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The award is endowed with each 10.000 euros.

Due to the quality of the entries two prizes will be awarded together 20.000 euros this year. With the award, the nonprofit Heinrich Stockmeyer foundation work aims to promote with special practical and applied research to achieve greater food safety and thus help to increase consumer confidence in the quality of food.

Source: Verl [Heinrich Stockmeyer Foundation]