Comparison of methods for recovery and enumeration of Campylobacter from freshly processed broilers

Most traditional Campylobacter detection and enumeration procedures are dif ficult and time consuming. Estimations of Campylobacter populations by the most probable number (MPN) method are especially laborious. The objective o f this collaborative study, performed in duplicate in Agricultural Research Service and Food Safety Inspection Service laboratories, was to compare tw o MPN procedures (utilizing different selective enrichment broths and plati ng media) to the direct plating technique for enumeration of Campylobacter from freshly processed (postchill, postdrip) broiler chicken carcasses. Res ults obtained from the direct plating of carcass rinse samples on Campy-cef ex agar were not significantly different (P > 0.05) from an MPN procedure e mploying Hunt's Campylobacter selective enrichment broth followed by recove ry on modified Campylobacter charcoal differential agar. However, both of t hese procedures provided significantly (P < 0.05) better recovery than a se cond MPN procedure using Rosef's selective enrichment broth followed by pla ting on Mueller-Hinton blood agar with antibiotics. The direct plating meth od offers a more simple, less expensive, more rapid alternative to traditio nal MPN procedures for estimating Campylobacter populations associated with freshly processed broiler carcasses.