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Changes of the bacterial community diversity on chicken carcasses through an Australian poultry processing line

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-20, 13:50 authored by Chen, SH, Fegan, N, Chawalit KocharunchittChawalit Kocharunchitt, John BowmanJohn Bowman, Duffy, LL
Understanding the bacterial community profile through poultry processing could help the industry to produce better poultry products. In this study, 10 chicken carcasses were randomly sampled from before and after scalding, before and after immersion chilling, and after air chilling each through a modern commercial processing line, along with the contents of 10 caeca. The sampled processing line effectively reduced the bacterial counts by > 4.6 Log10 CFU/ml for each of Total Viable Counts, Escherichia coli and Campylobacter. However, the metagenomics results suggested that Lactobacillus, Staphylococcus and unclassified Lachnospiraceae persisted at all sampling stages. Pseudomonas, Paeniglutamicibacter, Chryseobacterium and Pseudarthrobacter comprised 47.2% in the bacterial community on samples after air chilling compared to 0.3% on samples after immersion chilling, whereas TVCs were the same. Overall, the current interventions of the investigated poultry processing line were unable to eliminate persistence of certain foodborne pathogens, despite a significant reduction of the overall bacterial counts. Chilling is an important controlling point in contamination/cross-contamination, particularly extended air chilling. Lastly, the large presence of Pseudomonas on chickens after air chilling may lead to downstream spoilage related issues, which needs more investigation to explore quantitatively the effect on the shelf life of poultry products.

Funding

CSIRO-Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation

History

Publication title

Food Microbiology

Volume

86

Article number

103350

Number

103350

Pagination

1-10

ISSN

0740-0020

Department/School

Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA)

Publisher

Academic Press Ltd Elsevier Science Ltd

Place of publication

24-28 Oval Rd, London, England, Nw1 7Dx

Rights statement

Copyright 2019 Elsevier Ltd.

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Food safety

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    University Of Tasmania

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