Bacteriological enumeration, mycological profile and some physicochemical properties of Samarella (Tsamarella), a sun-dried meat product of Cyprus

Dried meat products manufactured by different drying and curing methods are very common and well-known with a long history in many countries. Samarella, which is written as tsamarella in Greek, is a traditionally produced sun-dried meat product of Cyprus. To date, no microbiological survey has been conducted for this traditional product. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the bacteriological and mycological profile of samarella. Samarella samples (n=100) were collected from various markets in Northern Cyprus and subjected to microbiological analyses for the enumeration of total mesophilic aerobe bacteria (TMAB), Micrococcus/Staphylococcus, lactic acid bacteria (LAB), mold/yeast and Enterobacteriaceae. Dry matter, pH and salt values were analyzed to determine physiochemical properties. The results from the colony isolation and numeration study revealed that, TMAB, Micrococcus/Staphylococcus, LAB, mould/ yeast, Enterobacteriaceae were isolated in the range of 2.30-4.13 log 10 cfu/g, 3.32-4.40 log 10 cfu/g, 2.00-3.92 log 10 cfu/g, 1.47-2.60 log 10 cfu/g and 0-1.11 log 10 cfu/g, respectively. Regarding the mycological analysis, 157 isolates belonging to 4 different genera of mould were isolated. The Penicillium genus included 65.57% of the total mould isolates and the most commonly isolated Penicillium species was Penicillium nalgiovense (30.57%). In addition, a total of 128 isolates were identified as yeast, and 3 different genera were identified. Among the yeast isolates, the genus Candida included 52.32% of the total isolates. Regarding the physiochemical properties of the sameralla samples; dry matter, pH and salt analyses results were in the range of 27.06-65.05%, 5.97-7.86 and 7.21-24.02%, respectively. Interestingly, many differences were noted between the microbiological and physiochemical properties of the varying sameralla samples, this may be due to the lack of food quality audits and the absence of standard production of samarella.