Background: The microbiological quality of red meat produced from most of the food-processing plants in Egypt has always been questionable.
Aim of work: This study aimed to examine the bacteriological quality of a restaurant in the Sohag University hospital environment (air, water; worker's hands, worker's clothes, and knives) beside the meat surfaces.
Methods: Bacteriological examination was performed for air, water, worker's hands, worker's clothes, and knives, in addition to the meat surfaces. Mean total bacterial count; TBC, total coliform count; TCC, total fecal coliform count; TFCC, total Escherichia coli count, and total Staphylococcus aureus were carried out.
Results: The obtained results revealed that the TBC, TCC, TFCC, and total E. coli counts were higher than the recommended standard for sanitary practices. In addition, we observed that worker's clothes contain more bacterial count than the hands and knives. The knives' swabs contained less bacterial burden but still higher than the recommended guidelines. In addition, 9 bacterial isolates were consistently isolated during this study including; E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Pseudomonas aeroginosa, Enterobacter spp, Klebsiella spp., Proteus spp, Citrobacter spp, and Serratia spp. with varying percentages of frequency across the sampling points. Whereas, none of Salmonella spp. were isolated.
Conclusion: the presence of pathogenic microorganisms in this study is of special concern and meat Hygienists should be fortified to review the processes involved in the environment surrounding the meat as well as meat processing of University restaurants in Egypt.