Bacteriological comparison of three categories of chicken wings.

Abstract

The aim of the study was to compare three categories of poultry meat (i.e. accepted for human consumption, category 3 allowed for the use in petfood and category 2 for destruction) on the presence and bacterial count of Enterobacteriaceae, total aerobic plate count, and on two of the most common bacterial foodborne pathogens, i.e. Salmonella and Campylobacter. In the case of no significant difference between the three categories, some reasons for categorizing the meat processed in the slaughterhouse may be altered. There was no significant difference between the categories 2 and 3 or between category 3 and human consumption with regard to Enterobacteriaceae and the total aerobic count, expressed as CFU/g. This was also true for the proportions of wings positive for Campylobacter or Salmonella within each category. However, there were statistical significant differences in the number of CFU Salmonella/g with regards to the category “fit for human consumption” and the category 2 wings. The discrepancy between the differences in numbers of Salmonella/g while the Enterobacteriaeaceae showed no differences, could be explained by the differences in enumeration methods used. The general conclusion was that there are practically no differences between the three different categories of poultry slaughter materials, and that the current system should be reassessed.