Multisite survey of bacterial contamination in ready‐to‐eat meat products throughout the cooking and selling processes in urban supermarket, Nanjing, China

Abstract

Objective: Ready-to-eat (RTE) meat is a kind of popular instant food easily contaminated by microbes, which is one of the causes of foodborne diseases. This study analyzes the possible sources of RTE food bacterial contamination during processing and subsequent selling.Method: Samples of eight kinds of RTE meat were collected from four supermarkets in Nanjing, China. The knives, chopping boards, trays(containers of food), clamps, air, water, and hands of the sales staff were sampled, and the enumeration of aerobic plate count and total coliforms and pathogenic bacteria was performed. Results:The survey revealed that poor hygienic levels was the causes that RTE meat products were contaminated by bacteria at different levels. With regard to pathogen, the incidences of Salmonella spp. and Staphylococcus aureus were 4.2% and 2.1%, respectively. These results also revealed that the bacterial contamination of RTE food was caused by the air, as well as clamps, chopping boards, knives, trays, and hands of the operators. The total number of aerobic colonies were positively correlated with the amount of RTE food in one pot (r = .87728, p = .0217), and negatively correlated with the maximum temperature in the center of the meat (r = −.81633, p = .0475). Conclusion:The high number of bacteria in RTE foods indicates potential food safety risks and the need to improve the health of supermarket sales staff. The most important thing is to determine how to raise hygiene awareness of employees through food safety education. Meanwhile, a comprehensive set of regulations on hand cleaning and disinfection should be developed to facilitate public health and reduce foodborne illness caused by the consumption of RTE food. K E Y W O R D Sbacterial contamination, Chinese, pathogens, processing, RTE meat product, selling, supermarket

Microbiological Contamination in Different Food Service Units Associated with Food Handling

“…Since animals slaughtered for human consumption are reservoirs of microorganisms [4,30], presenting a high load in the digestive tract, the evisecretion has been associated with contamination of carcasses and cuts of sheep, cattle and poultry that will be butchered [30][31][32]. In addition, it has been described that Butcher Shop operators often used the same chopping board and knife to split different kinds of meat, increasing the bacterial count during this food preparation process [33]. Thus, the butchering process of contaminated carcasses and cuts of animals is likely to contaminate the utensils used for butchering [6].…”

“…There is a body of research highlighting the association between bacterial counts in utensils and hands during the process of food preparation and the microbiological contamination of food. It has been reported that an increase in bacterial count occurs in meat samples when Butcher Shop operators use the same chopping board and knife to split different kinds of meat [32,33]. In addition, the evisecretion and preparation of fish for sale in Fishmongers can be a strong determinant of microbiological contamination of fish [35].…”

Impact of a Carboxymethyl Cellulose Coating Incorporated with an Ethanolic Propolis Extract on the Quality Criteria of Chicken Breast Meat

“…The current study found that storage time and coatings with C the TAPC of chicken meat (Figure 6). TAPC levels in chicken me log CFU/g, according to the recommended upper limit [51,52]. As the storage period progressed, the TAPC of coated and u meat samples increased significantly (p ≤ 0.05), but the numbers r As the storage period progressed, the TAPC of coated and uncoated chicken breast meat samples increased significantly (p ≤ 0.05), but the numbers remained within the recommended range.…”

“…The current study found that storage time and coatings with CMC and EPE impacted the TAPC of chicken meat (Figure 6). TAPC levels in chicken meat should not exceed 7 log CFU/g, according to the recommended upper limit [51,52].…”

Analysis of health risks associated with food safety

“…Глобализация производства и оборота ПП, поддерживаемая региональным и международным маркетингом, прослеживаемая тенденция к увеличению доли населения с низкими доходами, а также особенности приготовления и потребления пищи в различных странах продолжают оказывать значительное влияние на их безопасность и здоровье населения [8][9][10][11]. Цепочки поставок продовольственного сырья и пищевых продуктов пересекают многочисленные национальные границы, что увеличивает интернационализацию рисков для здоровья человека [12,13], создаваемых микробиологической [14,15] и химической контаминацией ПП [16,17].…”