The effects of sodium lactate, lactic acid and acetic acid, alone or in combination, on improving the shelf life of chicken drumstick and the survival of Salmonella spp. inoculated on the chicken drumstick

In this study, the effects of lactic acid, acetic acid and sodium lactate, alone and in combination, on the survival of Salmonella spp. and on the microbiological quality of chicken drumstick were investigated. The fresh chicken drumsticks were inoculated with Salmonella Typhimurium and Salmonella Enteritidis and divided into 8 groups as control (sterile tap water), 1% sodium lactate (SL), 1.5% lactic acid (LA), 1.5% acetic acid (AA), and their combinations. The drumstick samples were immersed into the treatment solutions for 5 min. Then the samples were stored at 4ºC for 10 days and analyzed for aerobic psychrophilic colony (APC), Pseudomonas spp., lactic acid bacteria (LAB), Salmonella and pH level on days 0, 3, 5, 8, and 10. The control, SL, LA and LA+ SL groups showed spoilage signs on day 5. On the same day, the numbers of APC, Pseudomonas and LAB in the AA, AA+ LA, AA+ SL and AA+ LA+ SL groups were lower (<7 log10 CFU ml-1) compared to the control and SL groups (P<0.05). The LA and AA+ LA groups were significantly different from the control group in the Salmonella reductions of 1.2 and 0.9 log10 CFU ml-1 on day 0 (P<0.05). The survival of Salmonella spp. in all groups was almost stable throughout the storage period, except for minor fluctuations. As a result, shelf life of the chicken drumsticks that were immersed into solutions containing 1.5% AA (AA, AA+ SL, AA+ LA ve AA+ LA+ SL) for 5 min was at least 2 days longer compared to the control group. Salmonella spp. was relatively resistant to AA and LA probably due to the buffering capacity of the chicken skin and meat. It is concluded that decontamination of chicken drumsticks with organic acid combinations will be useful in extending the shelf life of the product, and that increasing the acid concentration to be used while considering the organoleptic properties of the product can give better results.