What are These White Spots on my Boneless, Skinless Breast Fillets and Thighs?

White Spots on boneless, skinless breast fillets and thighs

Image via Wikipedia

• May experience product recalls due to white spots on boneless, skinless breast fillets or thighs often long before the product has reached its expected shelf-life
• This can be accompanied by foul odours (sulfur-like, sour, or putrid).
• Poultry production may have difficulty understanding this sudden appearance and differentiating it from common product spoilage, contributing production factors and how to prevent and correct this problem.
• First, identify the causative agent/organism by picking the white spots off the spoiled meat, spreading it on a microscope slide and examining the appearance of the predominating organism on the slide. If it is rod-shaped without small protuberances, they may be lactobacilli. This organism is gram-positive for confirmation. They produce acids (“sour” spoilage odour).
• If the organisms is large, and budding i.e with small protuberances on the cells' surfaces, they are most likely to be yeast.
• It is important to determine the causative agent because their origin and solution will vary depending on the culprit.