A STUDY ON THE QUALITY OF ORGANIC HENS EGGS IN THE EGYPTIAN MARKET

Authors

1 Department of Food Control, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kafrelsheikh University

2 Department of food hygiene, Animal Health Research Institute, Tanta Laboratory

Abstract

A study on 200 organic eggs samples from  Egyptian markets was conducted in order to evaluate the physical quality and the microbial load of the organic hens egg. The study revealed that 45% 0f the examined organic eggs had dirty shell, 9% Rough shell and 4.5% of bad odours. The microbiological examination showed that the average total aerobic bacterial, total coliforms and total staphylococcus count of shell were 1.6x106 ± 3.2x105, 3.9x 104 ± 3.9x103and 5.8x105 ± 4.8x104, respectively.  While the average total aerobic bacterial, total coliforms and total staphylococcus counts of egg content samples were 2.7x 103± 4x102, 8.1x10± 1.5x 10 and 8.5x102± 1.6x10, respectively. Staphylococcus aureus and salmonellae were isolated from 7% and 1.5% of the examined egg shell samples. While both organisms could not be isolated from the egg content of the examined organic egg samples. The public health and economic importance of isolated microorganisms were discussed.

Keywords

Main Subjects