Vol. 8, Issue 10 (2019)

Author(s):
Venkata Sesha Reddy C, Sujitha B, Maheswara Reddy D and Vani S

Abstract:
Meat quality and butcher’s awareness plays a key role in production of hygienic meat and preserving the public health. A structured questionnaire was developed and a total of 208 butcher shops were surveyed in the pilot study. The survey revealed that 34.61% of the butchers had high school education. Among the total shops surveyed, 95% had no license, sewage facilities (71.15%), lairage (70.19%), floor and it’s slope for proper drainage (68.75%), ventilation (60.09%) were inadequate. only 52.88 % were maintaining the disinfectants. Most of the butcheries are having ample level of insects (65.38%) and stray animals (55.28%). Only few of the butcheries are having clean cages/ lairage (26.44%), feed (25.48%) and water (29.80%). Only 12.01 % and 5.28 % of the butchers were aware about meat borne diseases and occupational hazards respectively. Further most of the butchers were wearing dirty, used shirts (71.15%) and foot wear (76.92%). Many of the butchers were unaware of using face masks/head gear/ hand gloves/ aprons (7.69%). During slaughtering practice, touching their nose during work (16.82%), spitting (69.71%), usage of tobacco products (46.15%), wiping of hands with same cloth in between the work (83.17%), counting the money while working (66.34%) was observed. Based on the results obtained in the study, it is concluded that most of the butchers required education and awareness training about hygienic meat production, threatful meat borne diseases, sanitary conditions and hygienic slaughter techniques in the butcher shops to safe guard the health of themselves and meat consumers.