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Page No. : 147–152

ABSTRACT

A study was conducted to evaluate the effect of two different processing methods on sanitary quality of chicken produced in processing plant and processed by conventional method and sold at retail outlets. Meat samples collected were subjected to total plate count (TPC), psychrotropic count (PC), coliform count (CC), staphylococcal count (SC), faecal streptococci count (FS) and yeast and mould count (YMC). TPC (log cfu/cm²) of chicken meats collected from scientific method and conventional method were 4.12 and 5.75, respectively. The samples collected from scientific slaughtering method showed mean PC, CC, SC, FS and YMC of 1.67, 2.18, 1.89, 1.24 and 2.08 log cfu/cm², respectively. The respective microbial counts for conventional processing method were 3.25, 3.73, 2.46, 3.57 and 2.97 log cfu/cm², respectively. The study also showed that breast muscle had higher microbial load than the thigh muscle in both the processing methods. The results in this study indicated that chicken parts processed under conventional roadside methods could represent notable hazards to human health.

Keywords: chicken, microbiological quality, processing methods