A total of 27 meat ball samples, obtained from Antalya, Turkey, were analysed for the microbiological quality between the years of 2001 and 2002.

In some samples; numbers of coliforms, Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus were between 103-104 cfu/g, which is not appropriate for microbiological criteria of Turkish food codex. As a satisfactory result, Salmonella spp. was not detected in raw meat ball samples.