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Poultry meat safety: Production, processing, and packaging safety of poultry meat, through bacterial intervention strategies - chemical, biological, thermal, engineering and nutritional aspects.
Non-Technical Summary: A. Rendered poultry co-products are used to produce dried meals which are in turn used in animal feeds and other applications. These rendered materials are high in bacterial populations and the quality and safety of the resulting products depend on the inactivation of bacteria present in the raw material. B. Listeria monocytogenes is an economic burden to the poultry industry and health risk to consumers. RTE meats are of particular concern for L. monocytogenes since consumer often consume these products with no or minimal heat treatment just before consumption. A. TO determine the thermal inactivation of the most heat resistant bacteria isolated from raw poultry co-products. B. To develop multiple hurdle steps to inactivate L. monocytogenes in RTE poultry meats. <P> Approach: Poultry meat safety will be addressed at several points in the farm to table process. 1. The thermal inactivation of the most heat resistant bacteria will be determined for raw poultry co-products destined for animal feed use and other non-feed applications. These include meat and bone meal, blood meal, and feather meal. The raw, non-rendered poultry co-products will be analyzed for heat resistant survivors by eliminating the less heat resistant species using incremental heating. The rendered meal will also be analyzed to determine if these heat resistant bacteria are contained in commercially produced samples. 2. The development of antimicrobial films in combination with heat to inactivate Listeria monocytogenes on ready-to-eat poultry meats will be studied using nisin, lysozyme and other new biocidal agents. Various films and coatings will be used including gelatin, direct application to polymer plastics and adsorbed particles.