In the current issue of Poultry Science, Chander Shekhar Sharma of Mississippi State University and colleagues there report a study were to determine the antimicrobial efficacy of LAE against C. jejuni (in broth and on chicken breast fillets) and spoilage microorganisms (on chicken breast fillets).

In-vitro antimicrobial activity of LAE was determined by treating C. jejuni (in pure culture) with 0 (control), 50, 100, and 200mg per litre of LAE solutions at 4°C for two hours.

Inoculated chicken samples with C. jejuni were treated with 0, 200 and 400mg per kg of LAE, packaged and stored at 4°C for seven days to determine the efficacy of LAE against C. jejuni on meat.

Non-inoculated skinless chicken breast fillet samples were treated with 0, 200 and 400mg per kg of LAE and were used for analysis of LAE treatments on growth of mesophilic and psychrotrophic organisms on days 0, 3, 9 and 14 during storage at 4°C.

Lauric arginate was highly effective against C. jejuni in vitro with no detectable survivors.

Lauric arginate significantly (P≤0.05) reduced C. jejuni counts on chicken breast fillets with 200 and 400mg per kg treatments. Lauric arginate at 400mg per litre gave a maximum reduction of around 1.5 log colony forming units (cfu) per gramme of C. jejuni during seven days of storage at 4°C without any change in pH of meat.

Treating chicken breast fillets with 400mg per kg of LAE caused a reduction of 2.3 log cfu per gramme of psychrotrophs (P≤0.05) compared with the control on day 0 of storage.

However, there was no difference (P≥0.05) in the growth of psychrotrophs on chicken breast fillets after treatment with 200 and 400mg per kg of LAE compared with the control after three days.

The LAE treatments had no effect (P≥0.05) on the growth of mesophilic organisms.

Sharma and colleagues concluded that LAE is effective in reducing C. jejuni on chicken breast fillets.

Reference

Nair D.V.T., R. Nannapaneni, A. Kiess, B. Mahmoud and C.S. Sharma. 2014. Antimicrobial efficacy of lauric arginate against Campylobacter jejuni and spoilage organisms on chicken breast fillets. Poultry Science. 93(10):2636-2640. doi: 10.3382/ps.2013-03858

October 2014