Post process product control of rendering plant sterilization conditions by ELISA.

Experiments were conducted in a laboratory autoclave and in a commercial rendering plant to set a limit for the R-value of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to prove that animal meal had been sufficiently heat-treated. The immunoassay method is currently the only technique used to check for appropriate sterilization of animal meal. The results of these experiments were statistically assessed using operation characteristic curves and confirmed that insufficiently heat-treated animal meal has an R-value > 2. Results of the trials also demonstrated that the main parameters of sterilization, temperature, and duration strongy influence the R-value, thus indicating that deviation from the target sterilization conditions is verifiable by the ELISA method.