Microbial Risk Assessment in the Main Steps of Poultry Slaughter

摘要

Along the technological course of broiler poultry processing, the degree of carcass contamination can be controled only through the strict accomplish of good hygiene practices (GHP), respectively of the HACCP system. The contamination of poultry carcasses with Salmonella and Campylobacter represents a major public health issue, given the high incidence of food poisoning with these microorganisms. Taking into account the facts mentioned above, in our research we tried to perform an assesment of the microbiological risk represented by the the total plate count (TPC) respectively E. coli , as well as the identification of Salmonella spp., Campylobacter spp. and Listeria spp. The study material was represented by 54 poultry carcasses collected from the following steps of the slaughtering process: reception of live birds, scalding, evisceration and storage. The samples were processed through stabdardized methods in order to evaluate the load and the presence of Salmonella spp., Campylobacter jejuni/coli, Listeria spp. respectively Echerichia coli . All results were statistically interpreted though the ANOVA monofactorial analysis. From the statistical processing of the obtained results, a significant decrease in the total germ load (TPC) was noticed when comparing the reception samples with the scalding ones (p0.05). E. coli was identified in 22.22% from the total number of the collected samples. A significant decrease E. coli load was noticed in the following stages of carcass processing: reception-scalding, evisceration-refrigeration? (p0.05). At the same time, a significant increase of the E. coli number was revealed in the scalding step when comparing it with the evisceration step, due to carcass contamination consecutive to intestine ruptures (p0.05). Salmonella germs were identified in 24.07% of the collected samples, without the identification of pathogen serotypes like S. enteritidis and/or S. tiphymurium. We mention that no Campylobacter germs were identified. Following the results obtained we can state that the microbiological risk represented by the presence of spoilage and pathogen germs has a distinguished importance for the carcass sanitation if the good hygiene practices (GHP, GMP) are not respected along the processing flow diagram.