Listeria monocytogenes and listeria spp. in ready-to-eat (RTE) food, cook-chilled and cook-freezed meal

Abstract

This study was carried out to fulfill two objectives which were to determine the presence of L. monocytogenes and Listeria spp. in ready-to-eat (RTE) food, cook-chilled and cook-freezed meal and to compare the aerobic colony count of the three categories of foods. About 36 samples consisted of three food categories that were represented by three different types offoodfor eachfood category were studied. About seven out of 36 samples (19.4%) were tested positive for L. monocytogenes and Listeria spp. of which five of them were comprised of RTE food and two of them were from cook-freezed meal. There was significant different between aerobic colony count and food categories (p<0.05). RTEfood showed the highest mean aerobic colony count (5.59 ?? 0.70 log (;fit/g) and significantly different (p<0.05) with cook-chilled (4.11 ?? 0.38 log cfu/g) and cook-Jreezed (4.83 ?? 0.58 log cfu/g) meal. When compared with the microbiological guidelines in Malaysia, about 41.7% and 19.4%from the overall samples did not comply with the guideline for aerobic colony count and L. monocytogenes respectively.