Abstract

Meat products are an excellent source of a wide variety of nutrients, high quality proteins, vitamins and certain minerals. At the same time, they contain an abundance of all nutrients required for the growth and multiplication of most microorganisms. The purpose of the current work was to make a microbiological evaluation of sausages retailed for sale in Al Ramadi, Iraq. To achieve this goal, a total of 100 fresh chicken and beef sausage samples (50 / each) were randomly collected from different shops. The obtained results clarified that the mean values of aerobic bacterial, coliforms, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella spp. and Shigella spp. counts for chicken sausages were 3.65×105, 5.35×104, 0.4×102, 1.85×103, 0.04×102 and 0.005×102 cfu/g, respectively. On the other hand, they were 2.6×106, 1.9×106, 0.85×102, 2.5×103, 0.085×102 and 0.015×102 cfu/g for beef sausages, respectively. In conclusion, it was clear that the mean values of counts for studied microbiological criteria were higher in beef sausages compared to chicken sausages reflecting a contaminative environment during processing, handling, storage and retailing of beef sausages as compared to that of chicken sausages. Finally, it was proved that contaminated food had been shown to be a critical link in transmitting pathogens to humans resulting in numerous cases of diseases. Therefore, great emphasis should be placed on the microbiological aspects of sausages and on searching for alternative mechanisms to reduce both natural and cross contamination, thus avoiding major public health problems; so, it is important to adopt hazard analysis and critical control point principles in processing and handling of sausage to achieve pathogen free products.