HC Deb 05 February 1990 vol 166 cc496-7W
Mrs. Gorman

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the risk of a pasteurised egg containing salmonella enteriditis.

Mr. Curry

It is not possible to pasteurise an egg.

Pasteurisation is applied in egg-processing plants to broken-out bulk liquid egg. Only a moderate heat treatment can be applied during the process, otherwise the functional properties of the liquid egg are destroyed. The risk of contamination remaining at the end of the process depends on the degree of contamination of the raw product prior to pasteurisation. This is why processing plants cannot accept raw product which is likely to be heavily contaminated.