Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 January 2015
This article analyzes the economies of capacity use regarding hot waterdecontamination to reduce postslaughter risk of pathogens in meat, takinginterfarm heterogeneities of Salmonella risk and costs oftransportation into account, using Denmark as a case study. If riskreduction goals are stated at the processing plant level, then theexploitation of the favorable cost-effectiveness properties of hot waterslaughtering requires fairly ambitious risk reduction goals and thus highuse of decontamination capacity. If instead risk reduction goals areformulated for the sector as a whole, the cost-effectiveness properties canbe exploited even for relatively low-risk reduction goals.