Contagem bacteriana em filé de peito de frango após o sistema de resfriamento

Abstract

Currently, Brazil is among the world's leading producers of chicken meat and has also become the main exporter of this protein source. The poultry industry has invested knowledge and resources for the microbiological control of its products, seeking to ensure food safety. Thus, the objective of this study was to quantify Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, and to determine the occurrence of Listeria monocytogenes in chicken breast after the cooling system at 4 and 7 ° C. The product was obtained from a slaughterhouse in west of Santa Catarina and the microbiological analyzes were performed according to international protocols. The pH and water activity were also evaluated. For carcasses that left at 4 ° C, 95.83 and 97.92 % of the samples presented counts below 10 CFU/g for E. coli and S. aureus, respectively. When cooled to 7 ° C, 92.71 and 86.46 % presented this level of counting. The highest counts of E. coli and S. aureus were 40 and 70 log CFU/g, respectively. L. monocytogenes was not present in any of the samples evaluated. The results suggested that the cooling system temperatures did not influence microbiological counting. The pH and water activity (aw) differed statistically when the cooling system operated at 4 or 7 ºC, ho wever did not influence microbiological results.