Microbiological Quality and Safety of Raw Meat at Slaughterhouse and Butchers’ Shop in Assosa Town, Benishangul Gumuz Regional State, Western Ethiopia

Meat and meat products are suited for microbial growth it becomes contaminated with a variety of microorganisms during the slaughtering dressing process some which pathogens. The objective this study was to count, isolate, identifies different pathogens & indicators in beef samples at Abattoir Retail outlets Assosa town. A cross-sectional done on total 70 raw (beef); 35 from butchers’ shop town May 2018 February 2019. Mean bacterial counts were compared by one way ANOVA through SPSS 20. Significance differences held p<0.05. range count aerobic mesophilic bacteria Butchers 2.75 - 7.52 log10cfu/g 2.49 5.16 log10cfu/g, respectively. Similarly, S. aureus 2.74 4.84 log10CFU/g 2.71 4.72 13 (37.1%) 17 (48.6%) E. coli whereas 9 (25.7%) 12 (34.3%) sample retail Salmonella spp., Coliforms absent 11 (31.4%) 5 (14.3%) outlets, Only (38.71%) 6 (17.14%) respectively satisfactory aureus. While 80% 57.7% AMB. handling environmental hygiene showed that 2 (77.1%) 29 (82.9%) contact surface carcass; unprotected easily exposed flies, (2, 12.5%) workers slaughterhouse had been taken training food safety, (3, 18.8%) wore hand gloves slaughtering. majority within acceptable quality but still indicates high contamination especially those butchers. There also difficulties achieve working area due shortage work-related facilities. Therefore, administration office other concerned bodies should fulfill facilities adequate butchers/workers their hygiene, sanitation meat.