Bacteriological Quality of Canned Meat Marketed in Egypt

Abstract

Abstract Because of rapid and busy life style, canned meat are widely consumed in Egypt. Therefore, the main objective of the current study was to evaluate the bacteriological status of canned meat marketed in Beni-Suef city. A total of 150 samples of canned meat represented by canned beef, corned beef, canned chicken sausage, canned chicken luncheon, canned luncheon and canned sausage (25 each) were examined for anaerobic plate count, Staphylococcus aureus count , enterococci count, total Clostridial count and isolation of clostridium perfringens. The highest prevalence of Clostridia were recorded in corned beef and canned sausage (60% each), while their lowest ones were in canned beef and canned poultry sausage (28% each). Twenty, 24%, 16, 12%, 24 and 24% of canned beef, corned beef, canned chicken sausage, canned chicken luncheon, canned luncheon and canned sausage, respectively exceeded the permissible limits of the E.O.S (2005) in relation to staph. aureus count. Enterococci could not be detected from canned chicken luncheon and canned sausage, while the levels of detection in canned beef, corned beef, canned chicken sausage, and canned luncheon were 12, 28, 4, and 12%, respectively. Cl. perfringens failed to be isolated from all the examined samples. It could be concluded that some of the examined samples were exceeding the local and international permissible limits for the examined bacteria, which may reflects under processing or poor storage conditions.