Comparison of Indicator Organism Counts on Beef Carcass Obtained by Destructive and Sponge Swabbing Methods

We compared total aerobic plate counts (APC) and Enterobacteriaceae counts on Japanese black cattle ( wagyu ) carcasses obtained by a destructive method and a sponge swabbing method. A total of 60 samples were collected by each method in both winter (January – March 2020) and summer (July – September 2020). Each sample obtained by the destructive method was 20 cm 2 (about 10 g) of carcass surface from four different parts (rump, top flank, bottom flank, and brisket), each of which were 5 cm 2 . The samples obtained by the sponge swabbing method were 400 cm 2 , swabbed at the surface of the same four parts, and were 100 cm 2 each. The mean ± standard deviation of the APC and Enterobacteriaceae counts obtained by the destructive method were 1.50 ± 0.79 log cfu/cm 2 and 0.44 ± 0.21 log cfu/cm 2 , respectively, while those obtained by the sponge swabbing method were 1.00 ± 0.48 log cfu/cm 2 and 0.29 ± 0.12 log cfu/cm 2 . APC obtained by the destructive sampling method were significantly higher than those obtained by the sponge swabbing method ( P ＜ 0.01). There were no sea-sonal differences in APC and Enterobacteriaceae counts between the two sampling methods. The linear regres-sion equation of APC obtained by the destructive and sponge swabbing methods was y ＝ 0.25 x ＋ 0.62, and the coefficient of determination (R 2 ) was 0.17. The correlation of APC between the destructive method and the sponge swabbing method seemed to be low.