Occurrence of Bacillus cereus in Meat Products, Raw Meat and Meat Product Additives.

One thousand nine hundred and sixty three samples of meat products, raw meat and meat product additives from different slaughterhouses, meat processing factories and retail meat shops in six prefectures of Japan, were examined for the presence and number of Bacillus cereus . Although B. cereus was found in meat products (18.3%) and raw meat (6.6%), the contamination levels were generally lower than 102 per gram. In contrast, meat product additives showed contamination levels ranging from 102 to 104/g with the highest values (104/g) in samples of spices and animal proteins. On the basis of these results, we suggest that the main source of B. cereus contamination in meat products is contaminated meat product additives.

Enumeration of Aerobic Spore-Formers and Bacillus cereus in Meat Product Additives.

Microbial populations in 225 samples of meat product additives including spices, seasoning, proteins, starch, salt, sugar and colorants, were enumerated by means of aerobic plate counts (APC), aerobic spore counts (ASC), Bacillus cereus total counts (BcTC), and B. cereus spore counts (BcSC). Our data indicate that meat product additives with the exception of sugar and salt were contaminated mainly by aerobic spore-formers including B. cereus under spore-forming conditions. To improve the quality of meat products, it will be necessary to develop methods to reduce the bacterial contamination of meat product additives.