Good morning Guys,
Well, as i read your description of the problem you mentioned couple of things
- Its on the surface of the sausage.
- Spot like then reach the inner aspect of the product.
- Its cooked & vacuumed.
Before jumping to any conclusions:
- Define the product's raw materials - Go through & review your Hazard analysis & CCP's - cleaning & sanitation process - go through your production steps - verification & validation processes.
- Each Raw materials should be tested ( packaging - spices - meat - fat - etc ... ) against the region meat suspected Bacteria including the guys mentioned.
- Include the Casing raw material ( do you use animal origin or Collagen Casing! is it tested , approved supplier , preserved correctly etc ... !
- include the meat type ( is it fresh - vacuumed *with or without Gas* ) ( chilled or frozen ) ( origin of the meat - slaughtering-house - supplier shipping process - etc .. )
- review & verify that all your raw material's suppliers are not the source of the contamination.
- review & verify that the cooking procedure is sufficient *time & temperature* .. review the packing stag - storage stage
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I was working as Food Safety Manager for a hypermarket and i faced this problem once in vacuum meat and i found that the root cause was Pseudomonas spp. :
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Mainly the Greening Spoilage in vacuum packaged meats caused by microbial production H2O2 or H2S. H2O2 production in meat has been associated with several types of lactic acid bacteria (primarily Lactobacillus)
Considering the Meat Pigments
The oxidant (H2O2) reacts with nitrosohemochrome (cured meat color cmpd) to form a green porphyrin compound.
H2S greening occurs in fresh meats that have been vacuum packaged and stored between 1-5oC.
H2S reacts with myoglobin to form sulphmyoglobin in meats with a pH above 6.0.
H2S is produced by:
- Shewanella putrefaciens and Pseudomonas spp. (when O2- permeable films are used).
- Some lactobacilli (when O2- impermeable films are used).