Effectiveness of Sampling Methods for Salmonella Detection on Processed Broilers

Abstract

A total of 240 processed broiler carcasses (water-chilled and unfrozen) were each sampled by three methods (whole-carcass rinse, neck-skin rinse, and macerated neck skin) for detection of Salmonella. In addition to this, various procedures were compared: destructive (incubating the entire carcass with the rinse fluid) versus non-destructive (incubating the rinse water with concentrated lactose or selenite cystine broth added after removal of the carcass) sampling and pre-enrichment versus no pre-enrichment during Salmonella detection procedures. There was no significant difference (p < 0.05) between the percentage of Salmonella-positive carcasses obtained by destructive sampling and the percentage obtained by non-destructive samples of whole carcasses. There was also no significant difference (p < 0.05) in results obtained by rinsing and blending excised neck-skin samples. There was highly significant difference (p = 0.001), however, between whole carcass and neck-skin analyses. With whole-carcass sampling, 45% of the carcasses were positive for the presence of Salmonella while with rinsing or blending the neck skin of these same carcasses, only 11% and 12%, respectively, were positive for the organism. Pre-enrichment of the whole carcass, of the whole-carcass rinse, or of the neck-skin samples did not result in significantly greater percentages of positive results than did direct enrichment of these samples.