Sausage fermentation is one of the oldest technologies used to preserve food for long
periods, and it is a process in which microbes, meat, and technology converge. Besides
the valuable protein and fat nutrients, flavour compounds are abundant and can vary,
depending on raw materials, starter cultures and processing conditions. Thus, fermented
sausages are groups of traditional products with great diversity in production methods
and organoleptic characteristics among different countries and within different regions of
the same country (Lucke, 1974).
Under normal conditions, lactic fermented foods, including sausages, would have no
pathogenic bacteria, or, if present, are below recognisable levels. The low pH of the final
product due to higher number of LAB could account for this phenomenon. However,
there are reports of survival of pathogens in fermented foods. Yersinia enterocolitica, for
example, survived through out the fermentation under natural fermentation conditions