CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The right of a consumer is to have a product of good quality and not a product that will constitute any form of health hazard. Cow meat are highly desirable, palatable, digestible and highly nutritious. Cow meat is comprised of about 20-45% protein; others are water, fat, phosphorus, iron, vitamins and zinc (USDA, 2011). Quality products are those that meet some need or expectation of consumer and are safe and wholesome as well (Sahoo et al. 1996). The microbiological safety and quality of cow meat are equally important to producers, retailers and consumers. Two quite different groups of micro-organism are relevant: ones that are pathogens and ones that are generally harmless to human health, but being psychortrophic, they are able to multiply on the product during chill storage (Clay, 2004). Spoilage result mainly from off-odour development and product shelf-life is determined both by the number of spoilage organism present initially and the temperature history of the product at all stages of production and subsequent storage and handling (Pooni and Mead, 1984). For chill stored cow meat, Viehweg et al. (1989) demonstrated that virtually all the odourous substances found at spoilage could be attributed to microbial growth and metabolism. Contamination of cow meat with food borne pathogens remain an important public health issue, because it can lead to illness if there are malpractices in handling, cooking or post cooking storage of the product.
Fresh (uncooked) food such as cow meat caries natural micro flora that may contain organism potentially harmful to humans. The microbial flora of cow meat is largely confined to the skin surface. Isolates from cow meat could include members of the following genera Proteus,Enterobacter, Alcaligenes, Escherichia, Bacillus, Flavobacterium, Micrococcus,Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus and  Salmonella (Frazier and Westhoff, 1988).
Contamination of the skin and lining of the body cavity occurs during washing, plucking and evisceration. Bacterial numbers vary considerably on the surface of the cow meat. This variation is greater between cows found in different location. The type of organism isolated depends upon where the samples are taken and upon the stage of processing (Frazier et al., 1985). Fresh cattle products like cow meat are known to undergo detoriation due to microbial action, chemical and physical changes. In normal handling and storage of cow meat, this detoriation changes are attributed to microbiological contamination and activity.