Atti del 52° Congresso Nazionale: Società Italiana di Igiene, Medicina Preventiva e Sanità Pubblica (SItI)

The research aimed to generate an early warning system highlighting in real time bacterial contamination of meat matrices and providing information which could support companies in accepting or rejecting batches. Current microorganisms' detection methods rely on techniques (plate counting), which provide retrospective values for microbial contamination. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the ability of the headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and gas chromatography -mass spectrometry (GC/MS) (HS-SPME-GC/MS) methodologies to detect volatile organic carbons (VOCs) which may be associated to a peculiar microbiological contamination of food. The disposal of fast HS-SPME-GC/MS able to accurately and rapidly (30 minutes per sample) detect microbial spoilage in raw meat could replace the traditional and time-consuming (3-4 days) standardized microbiological analysis required by regulations.