Bacteriological quality of refrigerated broiler carcasses of the five main slaughterhouses in Jordan

Abstract EN

The bacteriological quality of broiler carcasses of the five main poultry slaughterhouses (SH) in Jordan during refrigeration storage was analyzed.

The average initial and final counts after six days of storage at 4°C, of aerobic plate count (APC), psychrotrophs, Enterobacteriaceae, lactic acid bacteria and Staphylococcus aurous (expressed as log10CFU/g meat), were (5.5 and 7.3), (4.6 and 8.2), (4.3 and 5.7), (3.8 and 4.6) and (3.1 and 4.1), respectively.

These bacterial groups increased significantly (P@0.05), but not uniformly during the storage period.

The spoilage detection level (SDL) of samples from any of the five (SH) samples was apparent within the storage period when the APC and Psychrotrophic counts exceeded 7 log10 CFU / g meat.

The onset of spoilage time of broiler samples was found to be correlated negatively with the initial counts of APC and Psychrotrophs.

The onset of spoilage of (SH B) with an initial count of 6.6 log10 CFU / g was after 2 days where the onset of the spoilage of (SH A) with an initial count of 4.9 log10 CFU / g was after 6 days.

As a result of this finding it is of most importance to practice effective sanitation measures to minimize the pathogenic and spoilage microbial contamination of the poultry carcasses during slaughtering, processing and handling.