ABSTRACT

This work is aimed at assessing the microbial safety of meat and meat products sold in major markets in Umuahia. The research was based on fresh meat samples and ready to eat meat samples. The fresh meat samples comprises of raw beef, pork and frozen chicken (which is readily available in most markets than raw poultry meat). The ready to eat meat samples comprises of fried samples of beef, pork and chicken sold at various retail points in Umuahia. The samples were assessed for the presence of the following noted pathogenic organisms; Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coil, using selective chromogenic media. The fresh meat samples of beef and pork showed the mean microbial load ranging from 2.39 to 3.4 x 10⁶ cfu/g, for Listeria monocytogene, 2.35 to 6.2 x 10⁶ cfu/g, for Staphylococcus aureus and 1.0 to 8.0 x cfu/g for Escherichia coil. The frozen chicken sample showed a reduced mean growth ranging from 1.6 to 3.7 x 10⁵cfiulg for Listeria monocytogenes, 6.67 to 7.6 x 05cfu/g for Staphylococcus aureus, and 3.0 to 5.0 x 14 for Escherichia coil. The ready to eat meats showed mean growths ranging from 0.63 5 to 2.77 x cfu/g for Listeria monocytogenes, 1.76 to 0.63 x cfu/g for Staphylococcus aureus and 0.2 to 3.25 x 10⁵cfu/g for Escherichia coil. The mean growth of pathogenic E. coil ranged from 1.0 to 6.3 x 10 cfu/g in the fresh beef and pork sample, 0.5 to 2.0 x 10cfiu/g in the frozen chicken samples while a microbial load of 1.1 x cfu/g was observed in the RTE3 (fried chicken) sample, and no growth was seen in other Ready to eat (fried beef and pork) meat sample.