Decontamination of beef raw material to improve safety of raw-fermented sausages

• Published in: Proceedings of the International Conference Biological Food Safety and Quality pp. 81 - 83
• Main Authors: Blagojević, Bojan (Faculty of Agriculture, Novi Sad (Serbia). Department of Veterinary Medicine), Antć, Dragan (Faculty of Agriculture, Novi Sad (Serbia). Department of Veterinary Medicine), Adžić, Bojan (Diagnostic Veterinary Laboratory, Podgorica (Montenegro)), Tasić, Tatjana (Institute of Food Technology, Novi Sad (Serbia)), Ikonić, Predrag (Institute of Food Technology, Novi Sad (Serbia)), Bunčić, Sava (Faculty of Agriculture, Novi Sad (Serbia). Department of Veterinary Medicine)
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Faculty of Agriculture, Novi Sad (Serbia) 2012
• Subjects: beef; Food quality; Food safety; raw materials; Sausages

In Serbia and Europe, raw-fermented sausages are not normally heat treated either during production process or before consumption. The food safety risks associated with this type of sausages include bacterial pathogens such as verocytotoxigenic Escherichia coli (VTEC) and Listeria monocytogenes, as well as toxic biogenic amines (e.g. histamine, tyramine). Published scientific data confirms that usual physicochemical and microbiological factors acting during the production process can reduce but not completely eliminate the pathogens and/or prevent formation of biogenic amines (BA) in raw- fermented sausages. Additional risk-reducing strategies tried to date include the use of lactic acid bacteria antagonistic to pathogens or artificial acidification of the sausage content, as well as microbiological testing of raw material entering the production process. However, those strategies have not been successful in complete elimination of the pathogens, hence further research is necessary. In the present study, an alternative approach – decontamination of raw material (beef) – was applied with aim to eliminate bacterial pathogens (VTEC, L. monocytogenes, Salmonella) and biogenic amines-producing commensal microorganisms from beef entering production of fermented sausages. Because the fermentation of sausages cannot take place without lactic acid microbiota, the eliminated wild microbiota was replaced with selected lactic acid bacteria starter cultures.