Bacterial and fungal burden of local packing papers used for roasted meat in Kano State Nigeria

Abstract

Background: The appetite for fast food in developing countries continues to rise although plans to regulate how these foods are safely delivered to the consumers are not common if they exist. Objective: To determine the Bacterial and fungal burdens of local packing papers used for roasted meat in Kano State Nigeria. Materials and Methods: Standard microbiological methods were used to determine the bacterial and fungal loads of 108 locally improvised packaging papers for fast food roasted meats in strategic locations of the Kano metropolis. The packaging materials were obtained from consenting roasted meat vendors in the Kano metropolis. Appropriate aseptic precautions were adopted to ensure a good, reliable, and reproducible result. Result: The mean aerobic bacterial count observed ranged between 9.9 x 104 and 2.47 x 105 –3.09 x 102 cfu/ml and 1, 24 to 3.09 x 102 cfu/ml for fungi respectively. High counts of both bacteria and fungi were found in samples of meat wrapping papers. B. cereus and E. coli were isolated from 55% and 100% of samples of meat wrapping papers respectively. The roasted meat wrapping papers included old newspapers (80%), used exercise books (8%), and disposed of office printed stationeries (12%). The most probable bacterial number MPN showed that the papers for meat packaging were more exposed to contamination (75MPN/ml) while the paper plate had (7MPN/ml). Conclusion: The papers used for roasted meat fast food were found to be unsafe and unfit for packaging purposes as they can easily be a source of disease epidemic due to the confirmed loads of bacterial and fungal pathogens. The factory sterilized paper plates are also not free from microbial contamination but might be due to exposure to unsanitary storage and marketing conditions during delivery to end-users.