Evaluation of needle injection practices contributing to Campylobacter contamination in New Zealand chicken and chicken products

Abstract

One hypothesis for the higher rate of campylobacteriosis in New Zealand (NZ) is that secondary poultry processing practices increase chicken contamination. Chicken marination with needle injection may introduce pathogenic bacteria from the surface deep into the interior muscle tissue. The survival of Campylobacter in/on multi-needle injected chicken products was performed at the processing plant and retail. The ‘reduced salts’ marinade was not effective in reducing Campylobacter contamination level as the ‘high salt’ marinade. At the plant, every tested single injected drumstick with 'reduced salt' marinade was contaminated with Campylobacter with up to 3.5 log per drumstick where only 30% of the injected drumsticks with the ‘high salt’ marinade were contaminated on the surface. At retail, chicken products injected with the ‘low salt’, the contamination was very low or undetectable as all the products were sold frozen, but the chicken products injected with ‘high salt’ marinade were sold fresh, and the contamination level varies and can marginally exceed the target Campylobacter contamination limit (3.78 log CFU/carcass) set by The NZ Authority. The multi-needle injection practice tested in this study did not indicate that the marination process could increase the contamination level on chicken or chicken products.