Assessing the microbiomes of scalder and chiller tank waters throughout a typical commercial poultry processing day

Abstract

The commercial poultry processing environment plays a significant role in reducing foodborne pathogens and spoilage organisms from poultry products prior to being supplied to consumers. While understanding the microbiological quality of these products is essential, little is known about the microbiota of processing water tanks within the processing plant. Therefore, the goal of this study was to assess the microbiomes of the scalder and chiller tanks during a typical commercial processing d, and determine how bacterial populations, including foodborne pathogens and spoilage organisms, change during the processing day in relation to the bacterial communities as a whole. Additionally, considering this is the first microbiomic analysis of processing tank waters, 2 water sampling methods also were compared. Results of this study show that Proteobacteria and Firmicutes represented over half of the sequences recovered from both tanks at the phylum level, but the microbiomic profiles needed to be analyzed at the genus level to observe more dynamic population shifts. Bacteria known to predominate in the live production environment were found to increase in the scalder tank and gram negative spoilagerelated bacteria were found to decrease in the chiller tank throughout the processing day. Directly sampling the scalder water, as compared to analyzing filtered samples, resulted in significantly different microbiomic profiles dominated by Anoxybacillus species. While no sequences related to major foodborne pathogens were found, further sampling collection and processing optimization should provide researchers and the poultry industry a new tool to understand the ecological role of spoilage and pathogenic bacteria within processing tank waters.

Microbiome Profiles of Commercial Broilers Through Evisceration and Immersion Chilling During Poultry Slaughter and the Identification of Potential Indicator Microorganisms

“… Kim et al (2017) observed a similar sample profile as this study, where 98.7% of the phyla present were identified as Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, and Cyanobacteria. The organisms present in this study have also been previously reported by other researchers analyzing meat sample microbiomes or from meat spoilage investigations ( Borch et al, 1996 ; Patsias et al, 2006 ; Nychas et al, 2008 ; Handley et al, 2010 ; Rothrock et al, 2016 ; Kim et al, 2017 ). The presence of Pseudomonas in fresh carcasses is consistent with observations made by Hanning et al (2009) when they used PCR to detect and differentiate Pseudomonas spp.…”

“…More recently, microbiome analyses have been performed on the following poultry matrices, fecal, litter, carcasses, carcass weeps, and chlorinated chill tank water ( Oakley et al, 2013 ; Rothrock et al, 2016 ; Kim et al, 2017 ). These studies noted shifts in the microbiota through the production process and noted within this study.…”

Assessment of Chicken Carcass Microbiome Responses During Processing in the Presence of Commercial Antimicrobials Using a Next Generation Sequencing Approach

“…Consequently, hygienic management of scalding and defeathering steps as well as proper management of intestines could represent a critical control point to avoid cross-contamination of chicken meat. The chilling step is also a critical control point since it led to significant reduction of APC and Campylobacter counts and this is agreement with the common belief that the chilling step in poultry processing is the critical control step in reducing foodborne pathogens and spoilage bacteria 2 30 .…”

“…More recently, Rothrock et al . 30 assessed the microbiome of scalder and chiller tank waters at a typical commercial poultry processing day but not the individual chicken carcass rinsates 30 . In this study, chicken carcass rinsates from individual birds at different processing step were subjected to microbiome sequencing.…”

Listeria Occurrence and Potential Control Strategies in Alternative and Conventional Poultry Processing and Retail

“…The carcasses are subsequently heated in a scalder (56-65 • C) and are de-feathered in a picker (Sofos et al, 2013). The scalder uses ∼1 L of water per bird (Barbut, 2016) and has been noted as a potential source of cross-contamination and investigated in Rothrock et al (2016a). After a chlorine or peracetic acid (PAA) wash, undesired body parts and internal organs are removed (Sukted et al, 2017;Blevins et al, 2018).…”