Abstract
A study on microbial quality of commercially available fresh beef sausage in Tripoli city was conducted. A total of 21 samples were investigated for total aerobic plate count, psycrotrophs, staphylococсі, enterococci, coliforms and yeast & mould. The mean of total mesophiles and psychrotrophes counts were >10° cfu/g. Tested samples contained both of enterococci and total staphylococci at rate of >10 cfu /g where only 5% of the tested samples contained >10 cfu/g of Staphylococcus aureus. Moreover, >10° MPN/g of coliforms were found in all samples. On the other hand, yeast count were >107 cfu /g while only 30% of the samples contained mould at rate of >103 cfu /g. Thus all of the tested samples contained higher mean counts of the microbial contaminants than the suggested Libyan standard specifications for fresh beef sausage. Public health importances as well as factors that may limit such high microbial counts in fresh beef sausage were discussed.