Microbial Attachment to Meat Surfaces

The attachment of microorganisms to various surfaces and the mechanisms of attachment have become of great interest to the food industry and to researchers during the past decade. Few things have a closer relationship to man than the many bacteria, yeasts and molds that we constantly contact in our food sources and environment. A large group of these organisms is considered as beneficial; they are used in food processing to produce fermented meat and dairy products, and breads, as well as alcohols and various pharmaceuticals. A second group contains organisms which infect certain plants or animals to produce disease and impact negatively on humans in reducing available food supplies. Many of these, however, are not transmitted through the food supply to produce infections in humans and, therefore, are regarded as relatively innocuous as a microbial food safety problem. The third group, however, contains organisms which: (1) attach to food surfaces and produce spoilage of the food products following slaughter or harvesting and subsequent processing, or (2) are carried or transmitted through plant or animal food products to produce illnesses in humans following consumption of the contaminated product. Both of these sub-groups are important economically in that they result in loss of food products, loss of work time, and incurrment of medical expenses, as well as loss of nutritional substances. It is estimated that foodborne disease caused by Salmonella spp., Campylobacter spp., Yersinia, and pathogenic strains of Escherichia coli alone may account for 8 to 10 million cases of enteric diseases each year, and up to $2 billion from medical costs and lost productivity (Kvenberg and Archer, 1987). In addition, the extensive media coverage of outbreaks of contaminated foods and resultant recalls, (recently with Listeria monocytogenes in dairy products and with Salrnonella spp in meats), markedly affects the buying habits of the consumer and results in a subsequent decreased market for those products. Consequently, the attachment of pathogenic and spoilage organisms to meat and meat products is a prime concern of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is being examined by our laboratory and by others with the eventual goal of developing methods to reduce such binding, thereby reducing foodborne disease, and improving food production and quality.