Microbial Quality of Ground and Comminuted, Raw and Cooked Turkey Meat 1.

The microbial quality of ground and comminuted turkey meat was examined using raw meat and meat after two cooking times. Eight triplicate samples were obtained from a commercial processing plant over an 8-month period and analyzed for aerobic plate count (APC), coliforms, Escherichia coli , Staphylococcus aureus , Clostridium perfringens and Salmonella . The APC for 29%of the raw ground and 0% of the raw comminuted turkey meat samples was greater than 5.0 × 106/g. Raw ground and comminuted meat yielded a mean coliform most probable number (MPN) of 2.2 × 102 and 6.2 × 102/g respectively. Mean E. coli MPNs per gram were 12 for raw ground and 49 for raw comminuted meat. Twenty-five percent of the 24 raw ground samples, and 46% of the comminuted samples exceeded 50 E. coli MPN/g. S aureus was isolated from 25% of the raw ground and 54% of raw comminuted samples. Salmonellae were isolated from 8% of the raw ground samples and 12% of raw comminuted samples. C. perfringens was isolated from 50 and 55% of 40 ground and 40 comminuted meat samples, respectively. Cooking reduced the microbial numbers and isolation frequency from all samples.