Microbial Quality of Ground and Comminuted, Raw and Cooked Turkey Meat ¹

The microbial quality of ground and comminuted turkey meat was examined using raw meat and meat after two cooking times. Eight triplicate samples were obtained from a commercial processing plant over an 8-month period and analyzed for aerobic plate count (APC), coliforms, Escherichia coli , Staphylococcus aureus , Clostridium perfringens and Salmonella . The APC for 29%of the raw ground and 0% of the raw comminuted turkey meat samples was greater than 5.0 × 10⁶/g. Raw ground and comminuted meat yielded a mean coliform most probable number (MPN) of 2.2 × 10² and 6.2 × 10²/g respectively. Mean E. coli MPNs per gram were 12 for raw ground and 49 for raw comminuted meat. Twenty-five percent of the 24 raw ground samples, and 46% of the comminuted samples exceeded 50 E. coli MPN/g. S aureus was isolated from 25% of the raw ground and 54% of raw comminuted samples. Salmonellae were isolated from 8% of the raw ground samples and 12% of raw comminuted samples. C. perfringens was isolated from 50 and 55% of 40 ground and 40 comminuted meat samples, respectively. Cooking reduced the microbial numbers and isolation frequency from all samples.