Bacteriological Survey of the Frozen Prepared Foods Industry

Abstract

SURKIEWICZ, BERNARD F. (Food and Drug Administration, Washington, D.C.). Bacteriological survey of the frozen prepared foods industry. I. Frozen cream-type pies. Appl. Microbiol. 14:21-26. 1966.-During Food and Drug Administration inspections of 12 imitation cream pie producers, 453 finished product samples and 350 line samples were collected and analyzed bacteriologically. Sanitary conditions in the plants varied from good to poor and, in general, were reflected in the bacteriological results. The survey revealed that, in the great majority of cases, frozen imitation-cream pies produced in plants operating under good conditions of sanitation had the following bacteriological content: (i) a most probable number (MPN) of fewer than three Escherichia coli cells per gram (i.e., absent from all tubes in the methodology employed), (ii) an average MPN of fewer than 50 coliforms per gram (10 or more pies), (iii) the absence of coagulase-positive staphylococci in 0.1-g portions, and (iv) an aerobic plate count of fewer than 25,000 per gram (geometric mean of 10 or more pies).

Bacteriological Survey of the Blue Crab Industry

“…Plants operating under good sanitary conditions produced crabmeat with average MPN values (geometric) of less than 20 coliform organisms per g, no E. coli, coagulase-positive staphylococci average MPN values (geometric) of less than 30/g 93% of the time, and an average APC (geometric) of less than 100,000/g in 93% of the plants, with 85% of the plants below 50,000/g. Our findings confirm the premise previously established by Surkiewicz et al (6)(7)(8)(9) that insanitary conditions during the processing of food products are reflected in the bacteriological results of the finished product.…”

“…1.2 (1) 6.9 (7) 4.5 (6) 4.1 (4) 1.9 (3) 16.0 (9) 10.0 (9) 9.5 (8) 2.1 (3) 7.0 (5) 4.5 (5) 3.8 (4) 6.2 (8) 1.5 (2) 11.0 (8) 36.0 (9) 4.9 (7) 2.3 (4) 24.0 (8) 43.0 (8) 450.0 (5) 620.0 (10) 72.0 (10) 260.0 (10) 1.3 (2) 21.0 (10) 1,070.0 (9) 74.3 (10) 9.5 (8) 7.3 (9) 36,000 50,000 1,000,000 35,000 2,200,000 1,100,000 7,100 150,000 96,000 190,000 22,000 94,000 69,000 1,200,000 120,000 38,000 89,000 360,000 33,000 14,000 140,000 2,100,000 1,200,000 380,000 47,000 360,000 620,000…”

“…During the past 4 decades, the FDA has been taking regulatory action against firms producing crabmeat under insanitary conditions when the observed insanitary conditions were substantiated by the presence of indicator organisms such as E. coli and coagulase-positive staphylococci, and by high coliform organisms and aerobic plate counts (APC). During the last decade, the FDA has been conducting bacteriological surveys to determine the numbers and types of certain microorganisms in food prod-ucts and relating their presence to sanitary conditions observed in the plants (6)(7)(8)(9). This paper reports the results of such a survey of the blue crab processing industry along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts in 1968 and 1969.…”

Microbiological quality of frozen breaded fish and shellfish products

“…A review that summarizes these data for chilled and frozen foods was published in 1961 (3). Since then, several other studies have been reported that describe the microbiological quality of various foods (1,(6)(7)(8). These and other data have been used as bases for microbiological standards for a few foods by some states and by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (4).…”

Bacteriological Survey of the Frozen Prepared Foods Industry

“…A report of the results obtained from this survey, covering the period from March 1958 to June 1959, was issued in 1960 (5). The first of the present series of papers, supplementing the 1960 report, presented the results from a survey of producers of frozen cream-type pies (6). In this paper, the second of the series, we are reporting the phase of the survey which concerns frozen breaded raw shrimp.…”