Bacteriological survey of the blue crab industry

During sanitation inspections of 46 crabmeat processing plants on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, 487 samples of whole crabs immediately after cooking, cooked crabs after cooling, backed or washed (or both) crab bodies and whole crab claws, as well as 1,506 retail units of finished product were collected and analyzed bacteriologically. The 1,506 retail units (1-lb [373.24-g] cans) included 518 cans of regular (special) meat, 487 cans of claw meat, and 501 cans of lump meat. Statistical analyses showed that crabmeat from plants in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas had higher counts in 19 of 24 cases for the four bacteriological indices than crabmeat from plants located along the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf Coast of Florida. Aerobic plate counts of retail units collected from a previous day's production were significantly higher than those collected on the day of inspection. Regular crabmeat had consistently higher aerobic plate counts than claw or lump meat. When the product was handled expeditiously under good sanitary conditions, the bacteriological results were significantly better than the results from plants operating under poor sanitary conditions. Crabmeat produced in plants operating under good sanitary conditions had the following bacteriological content: (i) coliform organisms average most-probable-number values (geometric) of less than 20 per g; (ii) no Escherichia coli; (iii) coagulase-positive staphylococci average most-probable-number values (geometric) of less than 30 per g in 93% of the plants; (iv) aerobic plate count average values (geometric) of less than 100,000 per g in 93% of the plants, with the counts from 85% of these plants below 50,000 per g.