Microbiome of Treated Chicken Wings with Peracetic Acid, Sodium Bisulfate, and Combination

As the understanding of the underlying microbial ecology that drives spoilage changes with the advent of next-generation sequencing technologies, the development of novel tools for anticipating and detecting food spoilage earlier has become possible. In the current research, the use of the microbiota maturity, MAZ (microbiota-by-age) score, for poultry meat spoilage is proposed to determine the efficacy of shelf-life extension efforts such as short-duration poultry dips. Thus, tap water (TW), organic (peracetic acid: industry standard; PAA), inorganic acids (sodium bisulfate; SBS), and the combination thereof (SBS + PAA) on the shelf life of bone-in, skin-on chicken wings were evaluated. On d 0, 7 ,14, and 21 post-treatment, wings were rinsed in nBPW for 1 min and resulting rinsates were used for detection of two indicators of spoilage, total aerobic bacteria (APC) and total lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Additionally, samples collected on d 14 and 21 were used for microbiome sequencing where genomic DNA were extracted, the V4 of the 16S rRNA gene was sequenced, and subsequent sequences were analyzed using QIIME2.2019.7. The interaction of treatment and time impacted the microbial diversity and composition resulting in a bloom in microbiologically diverse populations as the stability of the population declined. Therefore, these results suggest that there are differential effects to the microbial community depending on the chemical intervention used with organic and inorganic acids impacting the microbial ecology differently. Additionally, it is proposed that microbiome sequencing or other molecular methods should be employed in parallel to standard microbiological sampling to provide more extensive, long term predictors of shelf life.