Journal of Food & Industrial Microbiology

The contamination in the industries of treatment and transformation of halieutic products in particular the common octopus leads to an awareness of their impact on the quality of common octopus. Cleaning and disinfection are fundamental methods in the industry of treatment and conditioning of common octopus because they allow limiting contamination of products. The method of swabbing allowed realizing samples of surfaces of 25 cm2 (5 cm of length and 5 cm of width) which are determined with a sterile and wet swab, bearing on 54 samples and 18 smears on the three studied technological stages: Reception, Plating, and Threshing. The rates obtained of the total aerobic mesophilic flora on the technological surfaces studied upstream is 0.175 colony-forming units per square centimeter which represents 97.9% and fecal coliforms are present in the order of 71%. These results show that the degree of efficiency is not satisfactory, the high rate of contamination by total aerobic mesophilic flora and fecal coliforms are due to the inefficiency of the cleaning and disinfection protocols used. On the other hand, the results obtained by the Total Aerobic Mesophilic Flora and fecal coliforms downstream which are respectively 2.3.104 colony- forming units per square centimeter representing 38.6% and 3.9.104 colony-forming units per square centimeter which represents 0.08%, these results reveal that the degree of effectiveness is satisfactory because the values are lower than the standards established by the committee of microbial contamination of surfaces of the laboratory section “committee of microbial contamination of surfaces of the laboratory ”.