Occurrence and Survival of Campylobacter jejuni in Milk and Turkey ¹

An enrichment procedure was used to determine the presence of Campylobacter jejuni in milk and ground turkey. This procedure consisted of subculturing a sample in antibiotic-supplemented brucella broth incubated at 37°C for 24 h, transferred to fresh broth, incubated microaerophilically at 42°C for 8 h and plated on agar medium selective for C. jejuni for detection. C. jejuni was suspected in 9 of 50 samples of raw milk, but was not confirmed. The organism was not recovered from rectal swabs of cows. Storage of whole milk and ground turkey inoculated with C. jejuni at 4, 37 and 42°C resulted in decreases in C. jejuni counts in milk at 4 and 42°C; and increases in counts in ground turkey at 37 and 42°C. No survivors were detected when suspensions of the organism were exposed to 10 ppm chlorine for 30 s or three common commercial sanitizers used according to manufacturers' specifications.