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. 2022 Jan;15(1):162-167.
doi: 10.14202/vetworld.2022.162-167. Epub 2022 Jan 27.

Survivability of Clostridioides difficile spores in fermented pork summer sausage during refrigerated storage

Genevieve Flock  1 , Hsin-Bai Yin  2 , Chi-Hung Chen  2 , Abraham Joseph Pellissery  3 , Kumar Venkitanarayanan  3
Affiliations

Survivability of Clostridioides difficile spores in fermented pork summer sausage during refrigerated storage

Genevieve Flock et al. Vet World. 2022 Jan.

Abstract

Background and aim: Clostridioides difficile is a spore-forming pathogen that causes serious enteric disease in humans. Strains have been isolated from food animals and meat, including pork, which suggest a potential for foodborne transmission. Pork summer sausage is a popular fermented meat product, which is consumed cooked or cooked to a lower internal temperature due to acidification of the product. The effect of acidity and cooking on the viability of C. difficile spores in a fermented meat product has not been determined. Therefore, the aim was to study the survivability of C. difficile spores in fermented pork summer sausage.

Materials and methods: Fermented pork sausages were prepared according to a commercial recipe with or without starter culture and C. difficile spores followed by fermentation at 37°C for ~12 h under 85% relative humidity until pH 5.0 was reached and further processed as cooked (>57°C) or uncooked (≤57°C) and stored at 4°C. C. difficile spores in sausages were enumerated at 1 h following inoculation and on days 0, 1, 7, 14, 21, 30, 60, and 90 of storage.

Results: It was observed that C. difficile spore viability in control unfermented treatment was significantly different on day 0 from the fermented, fermented cooked, and control unfermented cooked treatments (p<0.05); however, there was no significant difference among the latter three treatment groups throughout 90 days of storage (p>0.05). On day 90 of storage, the unfermented control sausages yielded ~4.0 log colony-forming unit (CFU)/g of C. difficile spores compared to ~3.5 log CFU/g recovered from fermented samples and the unfermented cooked control samples identifying spore viability in all treatment groups.

Conclusion: C. difficile spores were found to survive the acidity and cooking of fermented pork summer sausage and storage at 4°C for 3 months, thereby highlighting the need for effective intervention strategies to reduce the risk of C. difficile contamination in pork products.

Keywords: Clostridioides difficile; acidity; fermented pork sausage; spores.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure-1
Figure-1
Viability of Clostridioides difficile spores in fermented pork sausage.
Figure-2
Figure-2
Pediococcus acidilactici populations recovered from fermented pork sausage during storage.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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