It is not uncommon to recover up to 10,000 to 100,000 enterococci per gram broiler meat from retail outlets.
Proper cooking can destroy bacteria which are present in retailed meat.
However, enterococci are very resistant to heat and are therefore often found in cooked and processed food. Hence, the general population is exposed to enterococci from food origin and to VRE if present in food. The scientific knowledge on the consequences of this exposure to VRE is sparse. In the exposed group , the 6 volunteers ingested a mixture of 2 VRE strains originating from retail broiler meat. None of the 6 volunteers was colonized with VRE prior to the ingestion.