Studies On The Security Of Some Pathogens During Processing Of Jinhua Ham

The production of Jinhua ham has taken in traditional way for a longtime. It would take a long production time and difficult to control theproduction environment. The massive microorganisms could naturallygrow on the hams during the processing, which may cause a potentialhazard for customers. This paper carried on the separation andexamination of the pathogens on the hams during processing, and studiedon the growth of Staphylococcus aureus and salmonella which inoculatedon the surface of hams during aging.The results indicated that S.aureus was negative for entire processand the Staphylococcus isolated from the hams on sunshining stage wereS.chleiferi, S.hominis, S.epidermidis and S.caseolyticus. Salmonella waspositive on the sunshining drying stage, while negative on the otherprocessing stage. On the other hand, Enterobacteriaceae such asKlebsiella, Shigella, Providencia, Morganella and Citrobacter wereisolated during processing. The aerobic bacterial counts on the hams were between 10~5 and 10~6cfu/g and the coliform bacteria were positive on the 4and 5 months aged hams.The experiments inoculated lactic acid bacteria, salmonella andS.aureus on hams during aging stage were investigated. The resultsshowed that S.aureus was declined from 10~5cfu/g to 10~3cfu/g on 30daysafter inoculation and the one inoculated combining with lactic acidbacteria decreased to the level of detectable (＜10cfu/g). On 46th day, thehams inoculated with S.aureus again (10~6cfu/g), but on 71st day, it wasalso under the level of detection. Salmonella was negative in 7days afterinoculation.The results indicated that salmonella and S.aureus couldn't surviveand grow on the hams during aging stage, because the growth ofpathogen were suppressed due to the low a_w (0.774) and the high NaClcontent(5.74%). Besides, lactic acid bateria had adverse effects on thesurvival of S.aureus. Also, the results reflected that hams were easilypolluted by Enterobaeteriaceae during processing and it had potentialhazard for eating. The hygiene needed to be improved in the processing.