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Page No. : 61-64

ABSTRACT

A shipment of frozen tiger shrimp meant for export was rejected as the analysis of samples from that batch revealed significantly high APC (cfu/g) with a count range of 6,40,000 to 25,00,000 cfu/g and with no pathogens. Hence as a part of root cause analysis of this problem, a set of two samples each from 10 different production steps (total 20 samples) were collected. Analysis of these samples was done by conventional and Petri-film method. Both methods yielded similar pattern of APC with a correlation of 0.96 between them. It was observed that, the raw material before and after washing step had significantly higher APC values (1-4 x 105 cfu/g). During all the subsequent steps it was slightly fluctuating, but well within the limits of 10000 to 80000 cfu/g except for one set before soaking. It was significantly higher after soaking in one set of sample. But again it was very less (<10000 cfu/g) after glazing and after glaze hardening. The higher levels of APC in finished black tiger shrimp were attributed to time-temperature abuse during production (soaking) and possible contamination from unclean equipments and workers hands.

Keywords: Aerobic plate count, root cause and trend analysis, shrimp