cleaning” e the manual separation of the meat from the skin and
bones. There is a potential for the pre-cooked fish to be contaminated
with Staphylococcus aureus during the cleaning process
because humans are the main reservoir of S. aureus (FDA, 2011). If
recontaminated, there is a potential for S. aureus to multiply in precooked
tuna meat to significant numbers to produce heat-stable
enterotoxins in the canned products before the products are
commercially sterilized. While outbreaks of staphylococcal food
poisoning have not been associated with commercially canned
tuna, they have been linked to canned, smoked and salted products,
boiled paste and sausages where the growth of competing organisms
are inhibited (Bryan, 1980; Nakano et al., 2004; Simon &
Sanjeev, 2007). Although cells of S. aureus can be inactivated by
thermal sterilization processes, the enterotoxins they produced
may not be eliminated by the process. Therefore, S. aureus has the
potential to be a pathogen of safety concern in canned tuna
products.