Avaliação da qualidade microbiológica de carnes de peito de frangos de corte submetidas a diferentes temperaturas do ambiente de processamento

Abstract

The control of temperature in the processing room is one of major factor associated with the production of safe food with a satisfactory microbiological quality. A total of 288 samples of skinless chicken breast meat were placed in a cutting room, subjected to four different temperatures (12oC, 14oC, 16oC and 18oC) and collected with to evaluate the influence of the room temperature on the microbiological quality during the cutting and boning of chicken breasts. Aerobic mesophilic microorganisms were counted to evaluate the environmental contamination. In addition, the total and fecal coliforms were counted and Salmonella spp. was performed to determine the microbiological quality of the meat. The results showed an increase in environmental contamination (P=0.01) with an increase in room temperature.However, no significant differences (P0.05) had been observed in the meat cuts regarding the counts of total and fecal coliforms and the presence of Salmonella spp. Thus, despite increasing the environmental contamination, the increase in the cutting room temperature did not affect the microbiological quality of the final product.