ABSTRACT
The microbiological quality of meat depends upon several factors including the physiological status of the animal at slaughter, the spread of contamination during slaughter and processing, as well as the conditions of storage and distribution (Doulgeraki et al. 2011). Gramnegative rods (mainly pseudomonads) and micrococci usually dominate the initial microbiota of fresh meat; the secondary microbiota is usually formed by Enterobacteriaceae and Gram-positive bacteria including spore formers, lactic acid bacteria (LAB), Brochothrix thermosphacta as well as yeasts and molds (von Holy et al. 1992, Gill 2005, Nychas et al. 2008). These microorganisms may concomitantly contaminate the processing environment and if insufficient cleaning and disinfection procedures are followed may re-contaminate the products at various steps of the production procedure (Chevallier et al. 2006, Lebert et al. 2007). Additionally, casings and additives are important sources of contamination. Regarding the former, 53 positive samples to sulphitereducing clostridia out of a total of 138 samples were reported by Houben (2005). Moreover, the average population in the positive samples ranged
from 5.6 ± 3.75 to 187.1 ± 558.19 cfu/g. Regarding the additives, they may significantly increase the microbiological load of the batter. Paramithiotis and Drosinos (2010) reported on the microbiological quality of 13 spices, 38 spice mixtures and 15 additives. Although absence of foodborne pathogens was verified from all samples, total aerobic mesophilic counts of more than 7 log cfu/gas well as yeast-molds counts of more than 6 log cfu/gwere reported. Additionally, presence of Salmonella spp., Bacillus cereus, Clostridium perfringens, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli has been reported in a wide range of herbs and spices (Schwab et al. 1982, De Boer et al. 1985, McKee 1995, Garcia et al. 2001, Banerjee and Sarkar 2003, Sagoo et al. 2009).
