MICROBIAL CONTAMINANTS IN FOODS PREPARED BY VACUUM-PACKED POUCH COOKING (SOUS-VIDE)

Vacuum-packed pouch cooking (sous-vide) is now a wide-spread cooking m ethod in hotel restaurants. We have conducted microbiological studies on 39 items prepared by a hotel restaurant using this processing metho d. The following results were obtained; 1) In protein foods such as me at and fish, standard plate counts (SPC) were reduced to about 1/1000 by heat treatment between 58-degrees-C and 68-degrees-C employed in va cuum-packed pouch cooking. In most of the cooked samples, SPC were fur ther reduced during 7 days at 0-degrees-C. 2) Psychrotrophic bacteria, coliforms and E. coli were undetectable in foods prepared by the tech nique of sous-vide. 3) Clostridium perfringens was found in cooked chi cken breast meat and guinea fowl confie, but the number of anaerobes d etected in both samples was below the limit imposed by Japanese law on meat products.