Control of chilled meat of broiler chickens by bacterioscopic method

Abstract

The relevance of this study is conditioned upon ensuring proper risk-based control over the safety and quality of chilled broiler chicken meat at its production facilities, where a system of hazard analysis and control at critical points should be implemented. In this regard, this study was aimed at identifying the issue of control of chilled broiler chicken meat for conducting research to establish the freshness of broiler chicken meat at sales facilities – agri-food markets and supermarkets. The leading approach to the study of this issue was the developed patented bacterioscopic method, which allows comprehensively establishing the freshness of chilled broiler chicken meat. The presented method is simple to perform, with obtaining quantitative indicators for establishing the freshness of chilled meat of broiler chickens for 5 days, 6-7 and 8 days at a temperature of 0-4 °C, as well as with establishing the number of microorganisms in the field of view of a microscope and by the degree of muscle tissue decay, by staining one smear-imprint according to Gram in Hooker’s modification, and by counting the number of microorganisms in 10 fields of view, followed by deriving the average value per field of view, as well as determining the shape of the cells. The reliability of the results in tests using this method is 99.9%. It was found that the highest content of microorganisms was in stale chilled carcasses of broiler chickens on Day 8: in the chest muscles – 45 ± 3 (P<0.001), in the thigh muscles – 52 ± 5 (P<0.001) compared to fresh meat. Rod-shaped gram-positive microorganisms dominated stale meat, in some places single cocci were recorded, including a considerable breakdown of muscle tissue. The content of volatile fatty acids in the chilled meat of broiler chickens and the acid value of fat increased significantly (Р<0.001) on the 8th day of sale at a temperature of 0-4 ° C, respectively – 11.05 ± 0.37 − 10.97 ± 0.33 and 2.83 ± 0.33 mg of NaOH. During the examination of the freshness of the meat of broiler chicken carcasses, the highest percentage of fresh meat of broiler chickens during its sale in agri-food markets was 79.3%, in supermarkets – 75.0%, stale meat, respectively – 3.8% and 5.4%. The materials of this paper are of practical value for the work of state inspectors of veterinary medicine when using the bacterioscopic method to determine the freshness of chilled meat of broiler chickens