Patent ID: 7244365

Claim:
A process for safely decontaminating the chill water used in meat processing, which comprises: (a) measuring the oxidative-reduction potential of the chill water in the chill bath of a chiller prior to introducing the meat to be processed and chlorine dioxide into the chill water, in order to obtain a reference oxidative-reduction potential for said chill water, (b) introducing the meat to be processed into the chill water, (c) feeding chlorine dioxide to said chill water to achieve a predetermined target oxidative-reduction potential in the chill water from 400 mV to 750 mV, wherein the concentration of chlorine dioxide fed is from 100 ppm to 3000 ppm, and wherein the amount of chlorine dioxide fed is sufficient to increase the oxidative-reduction potential of the chill water to a level that exceeds the reference oxidative-reduction potential established in (a), and achieves the target oxidative-reduction potential referenced in (c), provided that the level of chlorine dioxide in the chill water does not exceed a residual level of 3.0 ppm; (d) monitoring the oxidative-reduction potential of the chill water with an oxidative-reduction potential analyzer; (e) monitoring the level of chlorine dioxide gas in the atmosphere surrounding the chill water with an air quality monitor; and (f) terminating the flow of the aqueous solution of chlorine dioxide into the chill water, if the oxidative-reduction potential exceeds 750 mV, if the oxidative-reduction potential of the chill water meets the target established in (c), or if the level of chlorine dioxide gas in the atmosphere surrounding the chill water exceeds 0.3 ppm.