Chicken has a bad smell

Hi All,

I've received a complaint from one of my customers about a load of chicken. Apperantly it has a bad smell. My first guess was pseudomonas, which can lead to spoiled chicken. But the package the chicken was in is a gas-flushed tray with no oxigen. Pseudomonas is an aeroob micro-organism.

What has happened here. Can anyone help me.

Thank you for your time.

Dear Darsen,

Surely the oldest complaint in the book . There are just sooo many possibilities (real and imaginary).

The first requirement IMEX is to obtain the codes / rejected items or a representative sample for traceback, examination of the packing etc. and if possible inspect the storage location / any other transportation systems if this can be a factor (non refrigerated trucks??)

Rgds / Charles.C

PS I assume you hv technical backup, otherwise I suggest using a surveyor, it's amazing how the details suddenly appear.

Dear Darsen,

Was it decayed smell or smell of chlorine or something else??

I would advice to reject the supply and keep on-hold the supplier from whom you had the supply and do the necessary investigation till the case is resolved.

As Charles says could be any number of causes, I wouldnt bother trying to isolate the organism but rather I would check Distribution/offload temps, make sure they have kept the cold chain. Check the packaging itself, seal integrity etc. What gas mixture do you use? 100% CO2? or an O2,N2,CO2 mix? Micro on any water used in processing.

Did you manage to identify the problem Darsen?

no not yet.

I've received more complaints. I understand there are a lot of possibilities. Can anyone name a few of the most occured.

Thank you.


By the way the cold chain was not broken, all temperature were below 4°C

The only way to pin down the organism that caused the spoilage would be to have some samples analysed the list of different causes is enormous but possibly one of these.
Clostridium, Pseudomonas, Porteus, Alcaligenes, Chromobacterium, Lactobacillus, Xanthomonas, B. subtilis and B. mesentroides.

Since your cold chain was unbroken I would look at other possibilities MAP failure, customer abuse and I would also re-validate my chilling/storage/transport.

How old was the chicken? We can achieve 11-12 days life using map packaging on whole chickens.

Salmonella?

http://www.efsa.euro...f?ssbinary=true