Airborne microflora in poultry slaughtering establishments

The bacterial loads in the air at different locations of a poultry slaughtering and processing plant were examined. Relatively high mean counts of airborne Enterobacteriaceae (log(10) 3.24 cfu/m(3)) were recovered in the bird reception area and at the entry to the evisceration room (log(10) 2.63 cfu/m(3)), while low mean counts of Enterobacteriaceae were recovered in the cutting and deboning area (log(10) 1.04 cfu/m(3)). The mean airborne total viable mesotrophic counts (TCV) were similar at various points along the slaughter line and in the reception area, (log(10) 3.99 to log(10) 4.06 cfu/m(3)) but were lower in the cutting and deboning room (log(10) 3.40 cfu/m(3)). In the air-chilling room at this plant, the mean TVC were log(10) 3.28 cfu/m(3), while in the spray-chilling room of another plant they were log(10) 4.16. Enterobacteriaceae were detected at log(10) 2.02 cfu/m(3) in this air-chilling and log(10) 2.06 cfu/m(3) in the spray-chilling room. The microflora in the region of the evisceration machine were composed predominantly of Staphylococcus spp., Moraxella spp., Micrococcus spp., Acinetobacter spp., and Klebsiella spp. In the reception area, Micrococcus spp., Staphylococcus spp., Corynebacterium spp., yeasts and Flavobacterium spp. predominated. In both chilling rooms the air yielded mainly Corynebacterium spp., Acinetobacter spp., Moraxella spp., and yeasts. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.