Survey of bacterial contamination during processing and refrigerated storage of chilled chicken in northern Jiangsu

Bacterial contamination during the processing and refrigerated storage of chilled chicken was surveyed in the representative commercial slaughtering enterprises in Suqian,Jiangsu province. Samples of workshop air,contact surface,cutting tools,chilling waters and chicken carcass during the processing and refrigerated storage were taken and traditional microbial cultivation methods were employed to culture and count of bacteria so as to find the potential hazards in the processing technology of chilled chicken.Results showed that front production area( hanging room,bleeding room,scalding room and depilating room),the evisceration process,chilling water and various contact surfaces with chicken carcass were the potential sources of contamination.The separation between front area and back area( plucking room,eviscerating room,pre- chilling room,packaging room) exerted a critical effect on the reduction the microbial contamination of back area.Sanitation standard operation procedure should be carried out strictly on the stage of evisceration since it exacerbated the pollution of the chicken carcass.Subsequent rinsing and pre- chilling processes failed to reduce the bacteria,which led to the rising of initial microbial amounts of packed chilled chicken and shorten the shelf life.Therefore,the pre- cooling process should be optimized to further reduce the amounts of initial bacteria in chilled chicken.