Purpose: This study is to report about the monitoring results of hygiene levels and microbiological hazard analysis of HACCP applied meat retail shops. Moreover, we analyzed the correlations with the foodborne bacteria and environmental factors.
Methods: A total of 113 meats and 340 environmental samples were collected from 60 HACCP applied retail shops located in geographically different areas in 2012. The isolation was performed for the indicator organisms (aerobic bacteria, E. coli and coliform), S. aureus, L. monocytogenes, Salmonella spp. and E. coli O157:H7. To characterize the pathogens isolated, PCR including Repetitive-Element PCR was conducted for virulence genes and molecular typing. The results were analyzed by ANOVA and DiversiLab profile system.
Results: The total bacteria count was 4.50 ± 1.10 log CFU/g (beef) and 4.77 ± 0.99 log CFU/g (pork), and was more found from the meat of large-scale shops than small ones despite no significant difference. Besides, 13 foodborne pathogens we isolated, 9 isolates were frequently found in large-scale shops (9/13, 69.2%). Of the all pathogens, 9 L. monocytogenes carrying inlA, inlC, inlJ, prs(7/7, 100%) and actA(6/7, 85.7%) were belong to 1/2a, 1/2c, 4b type, and the others were 4 S. aureus which were not detected any toxin. The Rep-PCR results showed genetically high relatedness (>90%) for except for each 1 isolate.
Significance: This study suggests that the large-scale meat shop could be more contaminated than the small/middle shops because of large amount of livestock products although HACCP was applied. Additionally the presence and generically high similarity of foodborne pathogenic bacteria implies the possibility of same channel for contaminated raw meat.