Microbiological Quality of Breaded Shrimp During Processing

Duplicate samples of shrimp or breading materials were collected four times a day for two consecutive days at 12 locations along the processing lines of 33 shrimp-breading firms in the United States during 63 inspections. All firms were using good manufacturing practices. For stock shrimp, the geometric mean aerobic plate count at 35°C incubation (APC 35) was reduced from 2.1 × 10⁶ to 3.3 × 10⁵ colony-forming units (CFU)/g for the frozen finished product. At 35°C, an APC 35 of ≤10⁶ CFU/g was found for 78% of the finished samples. At 30°C incubation, the mean APC was reduced from 7.8 × 10⁶ CFU/g for the stock shrimp to 7.6 × 10⁵ CPU/g for the finished product. Coliform mean counts were virtually static (64 to 83/g) up to the batter-breading steps; however, these counts reached 148 to 160/g at the first batter-breading step and remained constant until the breaded shrimp were frozen. Mean Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus counts were ≤3 and ≤10/g, respectively, for all 12 in-line sampling locations. Salmonella organisms were found in one of 118 finished product samples tested for this pathogen.