Assessment of bacteriological quality and safety of raw meat at slaughterhouse and butchers' shop (retail outlets) in Assosa Town, Beneshangul Gumuz Regional State, Western Ethiopia.

Contaminated meat has been implicated in many cases of foodborne illness and poses serious challenges in developing countries. This study aimed to assess the quality and safety of raw beef meat in Assosa Town. The finding showed that the mean of Aerobic mesophilic bacteria (AMB) and S. aureus at retail outlets was 5.04 log10cfu/g and 3.84 log10cfu/g; 4.03 log10cfu/g and 3.5 log10cfu/g at slaughterhouse, respectively. The microbial load range of AMB at the butcher shop was 2.49-5.16 log10 cfu/g, while at the abattoir it was 2.75-7.52 log10 cfu/g out of 70 raw beef meat analyzed samples. Similar to this, the butcher shop and abattoir had S. aureus microbiological load ranges of 2.74 - 4.84 log10 cfu/g and 2.71-4.72 log10 cfu/g, respectively. In contrast, 25.7% and 34.3% of the samples in the abattoir and retail shop, respectively, were contaminated with Salmonella sp. For S. aureus, just 38.71% and 17.14%, respectively, of the samples at the retail and butcher shops were satisfactory. AMB found that 80% of the examined samples from butcher shops and 57.7% from abattoirs were satisfactory. Due to poor handling and environmental hygiene procedures by Assosa Town butchers, 77.1% of the meat contact surface and 82.9% of the carcass were exposed to flies. On the other hand, only 5.7%, 28.6%, and 22.9% of the butchers kept the carcass in the refrigerator, and wore gowns and hairnets, respectively. In slaughterhouses, the majority of respondents (87.5%) concur that there were certain challenges in achieving slaughtering in the working environment.