Survivability of Clostridioides difficile spores in fermented pork summer sausage during refrigerated storage

is a spore-forming pathogen that causes serious enteric disease in humans. Strains have been isolated from food animals and meat, including pork, which suggest a potential for foodborne transmission. Pork summer sausage is a popular fermented meat product, which is consumed cooked or cooked to a lower internal temperature due to acidification of the product. The effect of acidity and cooking on the viability of spores in a fermented meat product has not been determined. Therefore, the aim was to study the survivability of spores in fermented pork summer sausage. Fermented pork sausages were prepared according to a commercial recipe with or without starter culture and spores followed by fermentation at 37°C for ~12 h under 85% relative humidity until pH 5.0 was reached and further processed as cooked (>57°C) or uncooked (≤57°C) and stored at 4°C. spores in sausages were enumerated at 1 h following inoculation and on days 0, 1, 7, 14, 21, 30, 60, and 90 of storage. It was observed that spore viability in control unfermented treatment was significantly different on day 0 from the fermented, fermented cooked, and control unfermented cooked treatments (p0.05). On day 90 of storage, the unfermented control sausages yielded ~4.0 log colony-forming unit (CFU)/g of spores compared to ~3.5 log CFU/g recovered from fermented samples and the unfermented cooked control samples identifying spore viability in all treatment groups. spores were found to survive the acidity and cooking of fermented pork summer sausage and storage at 4°C for 3 months, thereby highlighting the need for effective intervention strategies to reduce the risk of contamination in pork products.