Evaluation of Salmonella Biofilm Cell Transfer from Common Food Contact Surfaces to Beef Products

Abstract

Meat contamination by Salmonella enterica is a serious public health concern. Available studies have suggested that biofilm formation at processing plants and the contaminated contact surfaces might contribute to meat contamination. Since bacteria transfer from contact surfaces to food products via direct contact has been deemed as the most common transmission route that could lead to contamination, we evaluated the effect of Salmonella biofilm forming ability, contact surface materials, and beef surface tissue types on Salmonella biofilm transfer from hard surfaces to beef products. Salmonella biofilms developed on common contact surface stainless steel (S.S) and polyvinylchloride (P.V.C) were transferred consecutively via direct contacts of 30 sec each to either lean muscle or adipose tissue surfaces of 15 pieces of beef trim. Our results showed that Salmonella biofilm cells could be effectively transferred multiple times from contact surface to beef trim as enumerable Salmonella cells could be detected on most of the meat samples. Bacterial biofilm forming ability had the most significant impact (p<0.05) on transfer efficiency as the strong biofilm forming strains not only transferred higher amounts of bacteria after each contact, but also contaminated more meat samples with enumerable Salmonella cells compared to the weak biofilm formers. Contact surface materials could affect transferability as Salmonella biofilms on S.S surface appeared to transfer more efficiently compared to those on P.V.C surface. Conversely, the two types of meat surface tissues showed no significant difference (p>0.05) on biofilm transfer efficiency. Furthermore, biofilm - contacted beef trim without enumerable Salmonella cells all exhibited positive Salmonella prevalence after enrichment. Our study demonstrated the high potential of Salmonella biofilms on common contact surfaces to cause product cross contamination in meat processing plants.