Evaluation of the Petrifilm Plate Method for the Enumeration of Aerobic Microorganisms and Coliforms in Retailed Meat Samples

Abstract

This study was designed to compare the effectiveness and applicability of the Petrifilm plate method with the Association of Official Analytical Chemists' (AOAC) standard aerobic count method and violet red bile agar method for meat products. The comparison was carried out using 303 meat samples collected from various retailers: 110 pork samples, 87 chicken samples, and 107 beef samples. In the comparison of the correlation coefficient (R) between the conventional method and the Petrifilm plate method by a linear regression analysis, the correlation coefficient in total microorganisms was 0.99, 0.95, and 0.94 in pork, beef, and chicken samples, respectively. The correlation coefficient in coliform count was 0.83, 0.96, and 0.81 in pork, beef, and chicken samples, respectively. Based on the high correlation in the total microorganism count, it might be possible to replace the conventional methods with the Petrifilm plate method. For coliform counts, the Petrifilm plate method also showed a generally high correlation coefficient, except for pork samples, which are more subject to contamination. The Petrifilm plate method was simpler and less time-consuming in sample preparation and, in procedures, faster than the conventional method. These results suggested that the 3M Petrifilm plate method could replace the conventional methods in the analysis of microorganism contamination measurement in meat products.

Avaliação do padrão coliformes a 45ºC e comparação da eficiência das técnicas dos tubos múltiplos e Petrifilm EC na detecção de coliformes totais e Escherichia coli em alimentos

“…Alguns países como estados Unidos, Canadá, Austrália, Coréia, Portugal, Noruega, itália, entre outros, desenvolveram trabalhos e estudos colaborativos para avaliar a eficiência das placas Petrifilm e de outros métodos rápidos em relação aos métodos convencionais [6,7,8,11,16,19,23,24,29].…”

Comparison of Baseline Bacterial Levels in Retail Ground Beef Originating from Different Regulatory, Processing, and Packaging Environments

“…TAPC with Petrifilm plates is one of the most widely used methods for evaluating the cleanliness of food and production processes in the food processing industry (22,32), and TEPC with Petrifilm plates is a simple method for evaluating the most important 19). The results of all three methods were correlated, and TBL was a significant predictor of both TAPC and TEPC.…”

Performance of two ready-to-use systems for enumeration of aerobic mesophilic microorganisms in frozen goat milk

“…TM plates have been extensively tested and compared with several other counting methods, including the conventional pour plate method, and the results of these comparisons lead to the conclusion that Petrifilm TM AC plates are an excellent alternative to the conventional procedure for enumeration of microorganisms in foods, including milk and dairy products (4,5,7,9,10,12,13,16,18,19,24). Simplate TM plates have also been submitted to equivalence studies and good correlation indexes were also reported (3,11,15,22,29,30).…”