A Bacteriological Survey of Raw Ground Beef

Abstract

The microbiological quality of 150 units of raw ground beef obtained from a local retail store was determined. The range of aerobic plate counts was from 6.9 x 10" to 8.3 x 10 7 /g. By using the most probable number method 96.7o/o of the 150 units were positive for coliforms, 94.7%for Escherichia coli and 61.3%for Staphylococcus aureus. By the plate methods, 99.3% of the units were positive for fecal streptococci and 56% were positive for Clostridium peifringens. No salmonellae were isolated. Aerobic and anaerobic organisms were isolated and identified. E. coli was the most frequently isolated aerobe followed by organisms in the Klebsiella-Enterobacter group, Among the anaerobic isolates, C. peifringens was the organism most frequently encountered. The fresh meat industry is currently undergoing changes in processing, packaging, and distribution of raw ground beef. This change is the result of not only imposition of bacterial standards by some governmental agencies but also the desire by meat processors to increase the shelf-life of raw meat products. To accomplish these goals many retail food chains have centralized processing and distribution of fresh meat products which has resulted in little or no meat