SANITARY STATUS OF PACKED MEAT AND MEAT CONTACT SURFACES IN A MEAT PLANT

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt

2 Animal Health Research Institute, Agricultural Research Centre, Dokki, Giza, Egypt

Abstract

Seventy-five random samples of chilled packed meat were taken from a meat plant at early morning, mid day and at the end of the day (25 samples of each). Twenty-five random samples of frozen packed meat were taken from the freezing room of the same meat plant, fifteen surface swabs each of workers hands, meat preparing tables, knives, boxes as well as twelve samples of balances and five samples of packag­es were taken at intervals from the same meat plant. All samples were analysed to determine the Aerobic plate count Psychrotrophic, Entero­bacteriacae, Coliform (MPN), Faecal coliform (MPN) and E.coli (MPN) counts, identification of isolated Gram-negative bacteria, identification of isolated coliform micro-organisms and isolation and identification of enterobacteriacae. The obtained results revealed that the microbial load of chilled packed meat and meat contact surfaces were slightly in­creased by time .