Effects of seven modified gas atmospheres on the survival of Campylobacter jejuni in processed turkey roll

The question of whether modified atmosphere packaging is a problem concerning the pathogen Campylobacter jejuni in turkey roll was addressed in this study. The survival rates of pure cultures of C. jejuni inoculated into turkey roll slices and stored under seven different atmospheric mixtures were observed. The first series of experiments involved turkey roll held at 4 C for 18 days. The second series of experiments concerned turkey roll stored at 21 C for 48 hours. The various atmospheric effects on aerobic plate count, psychrotrophic plate count and lactic acid bacterial count were also observed. Increasing carbon dioxide concentration inside the package resulted in an increase in C. jejuni survival rate at both storage temperatures. The same increases in carbon dioxide provided greater inhibition to aerobic and psychrotrophic counts as compared to low carbon dioxide levels. The effect of carbon dioxide was more pronounced at 4 C on C. jejuni survival and on the growth of lactic acid bacteria, psychrotrophs, and aerobic bacteria. The importance of enrichment of food samples for the isolation of C. jejuni was clearly illustrated. Campylobacters were isolated from turkey roll held under all atmospheres by enrichment procedures on the eighteenth day and forty-eighth hour of storage at 4 and 21 C, respectively. It was concluded that elevated carbon dioxide levels used as packaging atmospheres for turkey roll could be a possible risk when C. jejuni is concerned. This is a result of very low increases in aerobic and psychrotrophic spoilage bacteria with corresponding increases in C. jejuni survival.