title: Impact of rearing conditions on the microbiological quality of raw retail poultry meat.
abstract: There is a gap in knowledge of microbiological quality in raw chicken products produced by nonconventional methods and no studies have reported the microbiological quality of turkeys produced under different rearing environments. Thus, the aim of this study was to compare the microbiological quality of conventionally and organically reared whole chicken and turkey carcasses purchased from 3 retail outlets in Knoxville, Tenn., U.S.A. A total of 100 raw broiler chickens organically (n = 50) and 50 raw turkey carcasses consisting of 3 brands reared either conventionally (n = 25) or organically (n = 25) were evaluated. The FDA BAM protocol for rinsing poultry carcasses was used to enumerate of aerobic bacteria, Campylobacter, and Staphylococcus spp., and for qualitative analysis of Salmonella. Organic chickens from one brand had the highest average counts of aerobic bacteria, Staphylococcus spp. and Campylobacter (4.8, 4.8, and 4.7 Log10 CFU/mL rinsate, respectively) while the other organic brand had the lowest average counts (3.4, 3.3, and 3.1, respectively) of all 4 brands evaluated. The organic turkeys had the highest average counts of these same bacteria (4, 3.9, and 3.8, respectively) compared to the 2 brands of conventional turkeys evaluated. Salmonella (5% prevalence) was isolated only from organic chickens and turkeys. From these data, it appears that the microbiological quality of the raw product was not dependent on rearing conditions and, thus, it cannot be assumed that organic raw poultry is safer than conventionally raised poultry in terms of microbiological quality.
authors: Dept. of Food Science and Technology, Univ. of Tennessee 2605 River Dr. Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
authors: Bridgshe
authors: B
authors: Hardy
authors: Nate
authors: N
authors: Crilly
authors: Sean
authors: S
authors: Pendleton
authors: Ana
authors: A
authors: Andino
authors: Audra
authors: A
authors: Wallis
authors: Nan
authors: N
authors: Zhang
authors: Irene
authors: I
authors: Hanning
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002167:Campylobacter / Q000254:growth & development / Q000302:isolation & purification; D002645:Chickens / Q000382:microbiology*; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D003257:Consumer Product Safety; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D005511:Food Handling / Q000379:methods; D005516:Food Microbiology; D063427:Food Quality; D058870:Food, Organic / Q000382:microbiology; D008460:Meat / Q000382:microbiology*; D012475:Salmonella / Q000254:growth & development / Q000302:isolation & purification; D013714:Tennessee; D014422:Turkeys / Q000382:microbiology*
keywords: Campylobacter; Salmonella; broilers; organic; turkey