Microbiological and Chemical Changes in Lean Wiltshire Bacon During Aerobic Storage

Total microbial growth and chemical changes in aerobically stored bacon lean were found to fall into 2 phases. Phase 1: there was an increase in total microbial load to c . 10 9 /g, during which most of the nitrate was broken down and there was an accumulation of nitrite. Phase 2: the microbial load increased further to c . 10 10 /g and during this time most of the accumulated nitrite was broken down to unknown products, so that at the end of the experiments most of the nitrate and nitrite had disappeared from the bacon. The most important types of micro‐organisms isolated from the bacons were Micrococcus , yeasts, Vibrio, Acinetobacter, Alcaligenes and Arthrobacter‐Corynebacterium. The latter 3 types appeared to be associated with phase 2 changes.