Microbiological quality of organic chicken meat during refrigerated storage in air and modified atmospheres

1. The aim of this study was to assess the incidence of pathogens and the development of spoilage microflora in organic chicken meat originating from a small poultry slaughterhouse and stored for 14 days at 2°C aerobically (control) or in one of two modified atmosphere packaging systems (MAP1: 80% O₂, 20% CO₂ and MAP2: 70% N₂, 30% CO₂). 2. Campylobacter jejuni survived well during storage; and was found on the skin in 95% of samples (262/276). 3. In general, both the skin and meat samples showed a good initial microbiological quality with total viable counts of less than 3 log cfu/g in meat and approximately 5 log cfu/g on skin. 4. No difference was found between breast and thigh samples during the experiment. 5. Shelf life was limited mainly by the development of mesophilic and psychrotrophic microflora on skin which were found at 7-day storage for the control and MAP1 and 10 days for MAP2.