Effect of Natural Preservatives and Thermal Processing on the Microbiological and Physicochemical Properties of Chicken Sausage during Cold Storage

Poultry meat is gaining popularity because of its competitive price, short growing period, positive nutritional image. In order to fulfil consumer’s desire for healthier meat product, local chickens were used to processed chicken sausage using local spices. Two different samples unpasteurized and pasteurized sausage were successfully processed. Physicochemical and microbiological analysis were carried out during cold storage. The pH of the chicken thigh, chicken breast, pasteurized and unpasteurized sausage ranged from 5.96 to 6.09. Dry matter, ash content, liquid content and protein content was recorded as 32.86±4.6, 1.73±0.4, 23.51±3.3, 16.68±0.11 respectively for pasteurized sample and 33.57±1.71, 1.82±0.21, 29.66±3.35, 17.28±0.46 for the unpasteurized sample. Microbiological evaluation for the pasteurized and unpasteurized sample over 45 days heighted the effect of natural spices and the thermal treatment. Enterotoxigenic Staphylococcus aureus, ASR bacteria and salmonella were not detected in all samples. These results successfully created a standardized method of sausage formulation using natural spices as preservatives and which can easily be adopted by households.