Bacteriological profile of some raw chicken meat cuts in Ismailia city, Egypt

Abstract

One hundred random samples of raw chicken meat cuts represented by breast and thigh (50 of each) were collected from an automatic poultry slaughtering plant in Ismailia city, Egypt. The samples were examined to investigate their bacteriological aspect, where the mean values of aerobic plate count and Enterobacteriacae were 5.9x105 and 5.1x104 CFU/g for breast samples and 7.1x105 and 6.1x104 CFU/g while for thigh samples as well as the incidence of Enterobacteriacae contaminated the breast and thigh samples were 42 and 54%, respectively. Moreover, S. aureus, Salmonellae, E. coli, Enterobacter spp., Proteus spp., Shigella spp. and C. perfringens were detected in 10, 14, 12, 4, 2, 2 and 16% of the examined breast samples, respectively. Referring to thigh samples, S. aureus, Salmonellae, E. coli, Klebsiella spp., Enterobacter spp., Proteus spp., and C. perfringens were detected in 4, 8, 18, 4, 2, 2 and 10%, respectively. The obtained results indicated that the raw chicken meat cuts may harbor many food poisoning bacteria from different sources, which strongly recommends following strict hygienic measures through slaughtering, handling and cooking processes.