Kitoza is a traditional meat product from Madagascar manufactured with strips of pork or beef. The process includes a first step of salting and mixingwith spices followed by sun-drying or smoking step. As salting and drying select coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS), our aim was to identify the CNS species in kitoza with the objective in the future of developing indigenous starters.

Microbial analyses revealed that the only pathogenic bacterium enumerated was Staphylococcus aureus, which was found in 54% of the samples. The level of Enterobacteriaceae revealed a rather good hygienic quality of these products. CNS were confirmed in all the samples at high levels ranging from 5 to 7 log cfu/g. Identification of CNS species in a large collection of 829 isolates revealed 9 identified species, 7 for beef and 8 for pork kitoza.

Therewere significant difference in the distribution of CNS species according to the type ofmeat and the process. Staphylococcus saprophyticuswas the dominant species for sun-dried or smoked beef and sun-dried pork kitoza (73–75%),while for smoked pork kitoza Staphylococcus equorum (26%), S. saprophyticus (23%), Staphylococcus succinus (23%) and Staphylococcus epidermidis (17%) co-dominated. Some CNS could be used as indigenous starters in particular to compete against S. aureus.

[Source]

Angela Ratsimba, Sabine Leroy, Jean Paul Chacornac, Danielle Rakoto, Elodie Arnaud, Victor Jeannoda et Régine Talon, International Journal of Food Microbiology, Volume 246, 4 April 2017, Pages 20–24,  doi:10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2017.02.001