Contaminação gástrica e sua influência na qualidade de carcaças de frango

Abstract

The rates of gastrointestinal contamination (fecal, biliary and/or gastric) in carcasses in poultry slaughterhouses are high, generating large financial losses, due to the need for disposal of protein, as well as if not stopped the control within the establishment can impact on food safety. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the carcass washer in the critical point of biological control against gastric contamination, for the microbiological control of and the impacts on the physicochemical parameters. The work was carried out in a poultry slaughterhouse in the western region of Paraná with a capacity of 470,000 birds/day. For this, in the period August 2021 to May 2022, through visual inspection, 200 carcasses that presented gastric contamination were collected, before and after going through the carcass washer. Similarly, carcasses without gastric contamination were collected before (100) and after washing (200) (control treatment), to collect swabs and analyze for Salmonella enteritidis, Salmonella typhimurium, Escherichia coli, and mesophilic aerobes. During slaughter, color (L*, a* and b*) and pH analyses were performed. To determine water activity (aw) and water retention capacity (CRA) samples were collected in the muscle just below the skin of the carcass area that presented gastric contamination and in the similar place in the control sample after the carcasses had been through the carcass washer. The results were submitted to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and when significant difference was detected the Tukey test (p<0.05) using the Statistica 7.0 program. In none of the evaluated treatments (with gastric contamination and control) Salmonella enteritidis and Salmonella typhimurium were detected. The mean microbiological counts for the control treatment were 2.34 ± 2.33 Log and 5.31 ± 1.84 Log before and 2.55 ± 2.08 Log and 4.71 ± 1.76 Log after going through the carcass washer for Escherichia coli and mesophilic aerobes, respectively. For the treatment with gastric contamination, the means obtained were 4.41 ± 1.54 Log and 6.38 ± 1.81 Log before and 2.89 ± 1.31 and 4.93 ± 2.07 Log after going through the carcass washer for Escherichia coli and mesophilic aerobes, respectively. Regarding color, the samples did not differ (p>0.05) in relation to brightness; however, for the parameters a* and b* the samples with gastric contamination differed from the control samples, presenting lower values for a* (more greenish) and higher values for b* (more yellowish) both before and after going through the washer. The pH, CRA and aw values did not differ between the control samples and those that presented gastric contamination (p>0.05). Washing of carcasses that presented gastric contamination proved to be an effective method to reduce microbial contamination to levels similar to the control treatment. Overall, gastric contamination as well as passage through the carcass washer did not interfere with the physicochemical properties, except for the color, which remained more yellowish even after washing the carcass.