Mold and Yeast levels in raw poultry

Hello everyone,

Is anyone aware of  FSIS guidelines for mold and yeast levels in raw poultry? If so can you point me in the direction of them?
Thank you

You won't find any

Why are you concerned?  Shelf life is already so short, this cannot possibly have a massive impact

Are you in a slaughter house, or are you bringing in commodity poultry to process?   The carcasses are repeatedly washed with treated water to keep e coli and salmonella numbers low, so I cannot imagine that yeast and mold are normally present in levels high enough to be a cause for concern

I am in a co packing agreement with a major poultry producer, and our common customer sent out a sample for testing. According to them our mold and yeast levels were high (2600 cfu/g), however I have no frame of reference as to what levels are acceptable or normal.

Got it

Assuming that the product arrives to use in combos with plastic liners and lids?  How are you packaging your finished product?

My money is on the packaging (it's no where close to sterile)

I (as expected) can find ZERO mention of Y&M relative to raw poultry for either usda or cfia

Do you have a contractual metric to meet?

The carcasses are repeatedly washed with treated water to keep e coli and salmonella numbers low, so I cannot imagine that yeast and mold are normally present in levels high enough to be a cause for concern

If you're repeatedly washing the product, wouldn't the moist environment lead to higher moulds even if the water used is treated?

The environment will always be moist (10+ years in poultry slaughter to value added) due to the nature of the process, even when only processing whole eviscerated birds

The carcasses take up quite a bit of water during chilling (and most are water chilled not air chilled) and then released that during cut up

According to our customer their metric is less than 100 CFU/g.

We are packing in plastic trays using Modified atmosphere mix of  80/20   O2/CO2

Could paeracitic acid affect these levels? They are being sprayed/dipped at the slaughterhouse with it.

Thanks

I don't know where is your customer located because every country may have different limits for yeast in food as an additive. Moreover, why your customer says it has more cfu? Do they check air quality or the product (packaging material)? 

First you may need to find the root cause of why there is so much yeast? 

Yeast is used in animal feed. So as an additive it is used with Selenium. It makes selenium yeast. The US regulatory reference is here: 

(i) In complete feed for chickens, turkeys, swine, beef cattle, and dairy cattle at a level not to exceed 0.3 part per million.

Yes, PAA should kill the Y&M, one more reason to think that the packaging is the issue

I would have the slaughter house swab the poultry before packaging and then the packaging itself to figure out what the issue is

The other thing to consider here is the temperature of the meat

What is your MAX receiving temp, and what temp do you keep your facility at?

Purchased frozen and stored frozen until ready to grind. 26-30 degrees at time of grinding. Stored at same temp until shipped out

Again---my money is on the carton/combo liners

I'd be asking to see the spec from your supplier for those items

OR--their facility isn't following a good program

Send out a sample PRE grind (take a composite across a few cases if you can) and see what you get---then at least you've narrowed down the source

I will say that the shelf life on this product is INCREDIBLY short (even when MAP packed) so i still feel it's not a big deal 

<100 cfu/g on raw poultry seems very heavy handed to me

Purchased frozen and stored frozen until ready to grind. 26-30 degrees at time of grinding. Stored at same temp until shipped out

You should probably mention Celsius or Fahrenheit or you will give an international customer a heart attack at some point.

My Bad, yes it is F

FYI here is my Q & A with USDA

Thank you for your question.

No, FSIS does not have guidance regarding molds and yeasts in raw poultry. FSIS does have a webpage that talks about molds on foods in general, which you can find here: Molds on Food: Are They Dangerous? | Food Safety and Inspection Service (usda.gov)

Generally, spoilage of raw poultry is caused by microbiological spoilage from psychrotropic bacteria (bacteria that can thrive at refrigerated temperatures). Sometimes mold can be present on raw poultry if near the end or past their shelf-life. If an establishment needs help addressing molds in their process, there are scientific resources available or they can seek help from state HACCP contacts, State Contacts | Food Safety and Inspection Service (usda.gov).

Please feel free to reply to this email with any additional information and explanation to better help address your question.


Question: Hello, are there FSIS guidelines for mold and yeast levels in raw poultry? If so can you point me in the direction of them?
Thanks

Got it

 

Assuming that the product arrives to use in combos with plastic liners and lids?  How are you packaging your finished product?

 

My money is on the packaging (it's no where close to sterile)

 

I (as expected) can find ZERO mention of Y&M relative to raw poultry for either usda or cfia

 

Do you have a contractual metric to meet?

Hi Scampi,

Not my area at all but googling << yeast levels in raw poultry>>     > a substantial number of items eg -

          yeast in raw poultry.PNG   113.52KB   1 downloads

micro quality, fresh,frozen chicken meat.pdf   217.83KB   24 downloads   

(possibly very "minimally" processed)

Predictably large variations in results but a quick browse revealed no official limits although comments on mycotoxins may be of interest.

@KTB - I'm curious as to other micro results in complaint, eg APC ?

My guess the customer's yeast limit is based on results of other suppliers.