Table 1.
Occurrence and levels of Staphylococcus aureus in different types of retail meat.
| Types of product | No. of samples | No. (%) of positive samples | No. of positive samples by quantitative methods by MPN/g range | S. aureus levelb (MPN/g) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MPN < 1 | 1 ≤ MPN < 10 | 10 ≤ MPN < 100 | MPN ≥100 | |||||
| Raw meat | 604 | 308 | 51.0% | 125 | 121 | 37 | 25 | 14.05 |
| Pork | 239 | 114 | 47.7% | 54 | 45 | 13 | 2 | 6.76 |
| Beef | 125 | 63 | 50.4% | 31 | 22 | 6 | 4 | 10.27 |
| Poultry | 159 | 108 | 67.9% | 25 | 48 | 18 | 17 | 23.48 |
| Mutton | 22 | 12 | 54.5% | 5 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 20.18 |
| Bacon/sausage | 59 | 11 | 18.6% | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.59 |
| Quick-frozen meata | 601 | 260 | 43.3% | 150 | 81 | 24 | 5 | 6.37 |
| Quick-frozen pork | 10 | 5 | 50.0% | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.14 |
| Quick-frozen beef | 35 | 11 | 31.4% | 5 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 11.84 |
| Quick-frozen poultry | 253 | 154 | 60.9% | 82 | 53 | 15 | 4 | 7.37 |
| Quick-frozen mutton | 68 | 21 | 30.9% | 16 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1.96 |
| Quick-frozen dumpling | 235 | 69 | 29.4% | 43 | 21 | 4 | 1 | 4.99 |
| RTE meat | 645 | 79 | 12.2% | 44 | 24 | 8 | 3 | 9.11 |
| RTE pork | 173 | 22 | 12.7% | 14 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 6.24 |
| RTE beef | 12 | 3 | 25.0% | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 15.95 |
| RTE poultry | 456 | 54 | 11.8% | 29 | 16 | 7 | 2 | 9.89 |
| RTE mutton | 4 | 0 | 0.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Total | 1850 | 647 | 35.0% | 319 | 226 | 69 | 33 | 10.35 |
a
All quick-frozen meat were stored at −10°C before being sold.
b
The values are the weighted averages, shown as the geometric means of the positive samples.