County of Arkadi, 74110, Greece
Tel: +30-28310-86700
Fax: +30-28310-58035
E-mail:cretafarn@otenet.gr
Website: http://www.cretafarm.gr

Role and Contribution 

Workplan

WP2	study the microbial ecology in general as well as the ecology of Salmonella spp and Listeria monocytogenes during the slaughtering and meat fabrication stages and determine CCP`s where significant cross contamination takes place for future interventions and production of low microbial load raw pork meat vital for the marketing of successful Modified Atmosphere (MA) products microbiological work concerning pathogen prevalence in meat products (by employment of ELISA methodology), food spoilage and environmental hygiene will be conducted in the in house laboratory of the company
WP5	develop and select MA meat products for further studies on their microbial ecology and changes during marketing. Organize inoculated pack studies to evaluate the behavior of the above two pathogens under laboratory and field conditions. Produce the products needed for the development of microbial models, TTI`s and verification of their utility with respect to meat products with emphasis on pork products. microbiological work concerning pathogen prevalence in meat products (by employment of ELISA methodology), food spoilage and environmental hygiene will be conducted in the in house laboratory of the company
WP6	conduct consumer surveys analysis

Role of Subcontractor

Research Personnel

Qualifications

Creta Farm (CF) was established in 1979. Today CF is a vertically integrated company with its own primary pig production unit (over 80000 pigs /year, operating under ISO 9002), feed mill, slaughterhouse (over 150 pigs/hour) and state of the art meat plant (completed in the year 2000) with a capacity of 50 tons/day, marketing fresh meat and over 70 processed meat products (operating under ISO 9001 and HACCP) distributed nationally.

A second vertically integrated facility in Central Greece is now under construction to produce and process over 200.000 pig/year making the company the largest of its kind in the country. The company personnel grew from 78 in 1997 to 309 in 1999 and 700 presently. The company has a modern (completed in the year 2000) fully equipped chemical and microbiological laboratory staffed with 7 university graduates heavily involved in R&D projects supported by over 100 additional scientists from the processing department and the animal production units.

The company is in close cooperation with the Veterinary School of the Aristotle University for matters of animal disease and control and food safety, the Medical School of the University of Crete for matters of food safety and studies on foodborne pathogens (microbial ecology, epidemiology, physiology) and the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute in Chania for matters of analytical chemistry and GMO. Since 2001 the company is marketing a series of modified atmosphere fresh meat products in a limited number of location and intending to cover the whole country and probably outside of the country.

Professor C.Genigeorgis (DVM, MSc, PhD, Dipl. European College of Veterinary Public Health) is the team leader of this proposal for Creta Farm. He is an emeritus professor of food safety of the University of California, Davis (UCD). At UCD he did his graduate studies and served for over 28 years as a faculty member. Under his direction over 65 MSc and PhD students completed their research studies for degrees in Microbiology, Food Science, Preventive Medicine, Comparative Pathology and Microbial Ecology. The studies were supported by dozens of competitive grants from USDA, FDA, NIH, the food industry and the Panamerican Health Organization. He has published over 200 papers and chapters in books and he has been an invited speaker in over 150 international congresses and symposia dealing with microbiology, food safety, food science, public health and veterinary medicine. He was one of the early researchers in the world, in the late 1960`s, to investigate the potential of predictive microbiology. Until today his publications have been cited over 5000 times. Since 1989 he has been an invited professor of food hygiene at the Veterinary School, Aristotle University (the highest honor given by the University). He guided the PhD thesis of 7 students in the area of food safety, with support from EU (AIR2-CT93-1519; FAIR1-CT95-0400), the Greek Government and the food industry. He has been an evaluator of the completed projects of FLAIR (1988-1993) and ECLAIR (1989-1993) Programmes (EUR 16192, report No 67). Currently he is an emeritus professor of Aristotle University and since 2000 a senior consultant for the Laboratory of Medical Microbiology and Zoonoses, Food Safety Unit at the University of Crete, Heraklion and senior consultant for food safety and R&D for Creta Farm.