| Summary: | Meat product inspection is one of the procedures adopted more than a century ago to guarantee food quality and safety for consumption. Due to technology and regulation advancement for farming and slaughtering pigs, a change in zoonotic profile attributed to pork has been identified. Thus, a global movement began to establish inspection parameters based on epidemiological risk profiles, culminating in the publication of a new regulation in Brazil in 2018. This normative instruction establishes that slaughterhouses under federal inspection must implement risk-based inspection until 2028. Changes in the inspection system can generate questions and objections on the part of customers and consumer markets. In order to assess microbiological contamination when adopting a risk-based inspection system, the occurrence of <i>Salmonella</i> spp. and the quantification of <i>Enterobacteriaceae</i> and mesophilic aerobic counts were compared in pig carcasses slaughtered under traditional and risk-based inspection systems. A statistical significance reduction was identified regarding the quantification of <i>Enterobacteriaceae</i> (log −0.18 to −1.61 CFU/cm<sup>2</sup>) and mesophilic aerobic counts (log 4.60 to 3.49 CFU/cm<sup>2</sup>). The occurrence of <i>Salmonella</i> spp. did not show a significant difference (4% to 5.3%). The results allowed us to conclude that adopting risk-based inspection systems improves food safety through <i>Enterobacteriaceae</i> and mesophilic aerobic counts reduction.
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