BACTERIAL PROFILE OF VACUUM PACKED POULTRY ROAST IN ASSOCIATION WITH PH AND NITRITE CONTENT

Consumer interest for poultry products has been increased in recent years. Chicken and turkey
roast are recently considered as one of the most popular cured cooked poultry product. These
products are commonly sold as sliced and vacuum-packed "ready to eat". Therefore,
recontamination and/or inadequate vacuum process of such products may be occurred causing
public health hazards. Consequently, a total of forty-two poultry roast (twenty-one for each
chicken roast) produced by seven different meat processing plants (three samples each) were
collected from different production batches for determination of its quality. All examined
samples "chicken and turkey roast" represented higher aerobic mesophilic, anaerobic bacterial
count than permissible limit established by Egyptian standard specification "ESS" 3493/2005
for cured cooked poultry products. Moreover, all examined roast samples "chicken and turkey
had high lactic acid bacterial count; however, it is not established by ESS as quality indicator
parameters for such products. There were significant (P< 0.05) differences in pH values
among products produced by different processing plant. In addition to there were significant (P< 0.05) differences in residual nitrite content between the most of investigated samples. The turkey roast product produced by 1st processing plant revealed significant (P< 0.05) reduction in all investigated bacterial groups and significant (P< 0.05) elevation in both pH value and residual nitrite content than that of produced by other processing plants. On the other hand, the turkey roast produced by 6th processing had the highest bacterial load and the lowest pH value and residual nitrite content than other plants. This study indicated that there is relationship between bacterial load, pH value and residual nitrite content of vacuum-packed poultry products.