IN-FIELD COMPARATIVE-EVALUATION OF THE ANTIMICROBIAL EFFECTS OF PLAIN DETERGENTS AND OF BIOCIDES-SUPPLEMENTED DETERGENTS

In a meat industry it has been performed a trial to compare the efficiency of cleaning by a plain detergent and by a biocides supplemented detergent. New laboratory tools have been used for monitoring the residual bacteria onto surfaces and the environmental listeriae: the Surface Sampling Kit (Copan Italia, Italy) has proved to be useful for quantitative recovery of living and dead organisms from surfaces; in the elution fluid it includes a balanced mixture of inactivating agents to overcome the residual effects of common disinfectants; the LI.SA. (Listeria Salmonella) improved the recovery of stressed pathogenic bacteria from disinfected surfaces and the environment. The results suggest that the addition of biocides (i) lowers the number of bacteria, with particular concern to the Gram negative coliforms, and (ii) improves the control of environmental bacteria such as listeriae.