Ready-to-eat (RTE) meat product sandwiches have become one of the most important sources of nutrition, especially with changing consumer’s dietary and social habits; unfortunately, it may be loaded with many microorganisms especially accidental post-cooking cross-contamination; therefore, the study aimed to investigate the bacteriological quality of 120 ready to eat meat product sandwiches (beef kofta, bovine liver, fish fillet, and chicken nuggets), 30 of each, which were collected randomly from restaurants and street vendors located in Benha city, Qalubiya Governorate, Egypt. Results revealed that kofta samples were the most contaminated samples where mean values of aerobic plate count (APC) and coliforms were 9.6x106, and 1.9x102 CFUg, respectively; followed by chicken nuggets, fish fillet, and bovine liver samples; furthermore, E. coli and salmonellae of different serological types were detected in 5.8%, and 2.5% of examined samples, respectively. Obtained results indicated that RTE meat based sandwiches may pose a risk to consumer’s health in the absence of food safety knowledge and hygiene application; strict hygienic measures and authority inspection is strongly recommended. |
