Verificação da perda de água pelo descongelamento e avaliação microbiológica das carcaças de frango congeladas

Abstract

Nowadays the chicken meat is one of the most consumed meat in Brazil and in the world, that’s because its low price to the consumer, besides being a food of high nutritious value. Brazil is one of the biggest chicken meat exporters of the world. However, a big problem has been identified in the chicken carcasses. They have presented an excess of water after unfreezing, what is against the current law, as well it represents an economic loss for the consumers, considering that they are paying for the incorporated water, increasing the final cost of the product. This paper aims to check possible frauds in frozen chicken carcasses and evaluate the microbiology quality. In order to that thirty six carcasses have been collected from three different brands in the markets of Francisco Beltrão city in order to check the percentage of water lost when unfreezing through the Drip Test, and also to check the presence of thermotolerant coliforms, mesophilic, positive staphylococcus coagulase and Salmonella spp. After an analysis it could be realized that in the brand A, all the samples were according to standards stablished by the Brazilian legislation, while the brand B presented high percentage of water absorption, besides to present positive result on salmonella spp. in one of the batches. The brand C has presented high percentage of water absorption. Such results represent the need of more inspection in the slaughterhouses by those who are responsible.