Viable Campylobacter jejuni on Eggshells and Its Potential to Cross-contaminate Egg White and Yolk When Using a Manual Separation Technique, Determined by Culture and Propidium Monoazide (PMA) qPCR

Manual separation of egg yolk from egg white using the eggshell is common practice in private households. For this, the egg is cracked and both components are separated by passing the egg yolk back and forth between the two halves of the eggshell, allowing the egg white to drip down while the egg yolk remains in the shell. During this process, the egg content naturally gets in contact with the outside of the eggshell, which might lead to a cross-contamination with its microorganisms, thus was correspondingly assessed in this study. Campylobacter jejuni is one of the most important zoonotic pathogens that can be found on eggshells. Therefore, this bacterium was used to artificially contaminate the eggshells (n = 22) with concentrations of 3.1 ± 0.6 log