Comparison of destructive and nondestructive sampling techniques of retail chicken carcasses for enumeration of hygiene indicator microorganisms.
The type of sampling technique used to obtain food samples is fundamental to the success of microbiological analysis. Destructive and nondestructive techniques, such as tissue excision and rinsing, respectively, are widely employed in obtaining samples from chicken carcasses. In this  study, four sampling techniques used for chicken carcasses were compared to evaluate their performances in the enumeration of hygiene indicator microorganisms. Sixty fresh chicken carcasses were sampled by rinsing, tissue excision, superficial swabbing, and skin excision. All samples were  submitted for enumeration of mesophilic aerobes, Enterobacteriaceae, coliforms, and Escherichia coli. The results were compared to determine the statistical significance of differences and correlation (P < 0.05). Tissue excision provided the highest microbial counts  compared with the other procedures, with significant differences obtained only for coliforms and E. coli (P < 0.05). Significant correlations (P < 0.05) were observed for all the sampling techniques evaluated for most of the hygiene indicators. Despite presenting  a higher recovery ability, tissue excision did not present significant differences for microorganism enumeration compared with other nondestructive techniques, such as rinsing, indicating its adequacy for microbiological analysis of chicken carcasses.
Departamento de Veterinária, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Campus Universitário, 36570-000, Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Marcus Vinícius Coutinho
MV
Cossi
Michelle Vieira
MV
de Almeida
Mariane Rezende
MR
Dias
Paulo Sérgiode
PS
de Arruda Pinto
Luís Augusto
LA
Nero
D000818:Animals; D002645:Chickens / Q000382:microbiology*; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial / Q000379:methods*; D004755:Enterobacteriaceae / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D005511:Food Handling / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D006920:Hygiene