Microbial loads and incidence of food-borne indicator bacteria in most popular indigenous fermented food condiments from middle-belt and southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

The food indicator bacteriological quality of 1 501 samples of most-consumed Nigerian fermented food condiments (iru n = 1 125, ogiri n = 148, okpehe n = 113 and ugba n = 115), randomly obtained from various markets in eleven major cities of Nigeria, was determined. A total of 472 strains of Staphylococcus aureus and 3 556 Gram-negative indicator bacterial strains, Escherichia coli (863 [24.3%]),Klebsiella pneumoniae (671 [18.8%]), Proteus mirabilis (591 [16.6%]) andPseudomonas aeruginosa (374 [10.5%]) were isolated. The other isolated bacterial species were Klebsiella aerogenes (299 [8.4%]); Citrobacter aerogenes (264 [7.4%]); Enterobacter aerogenes (227 [6.4%]); Shigella dysenteriae (168 [4.7%]),Shigella flexneri (60 [1.7%]) and Shigella sonnei (39 [1.1%]). The most frequently recovered bacterial species from iru were E. coli, K. pneumoniae, P. mirabilis andP. aeruginosa, while E. coli, K. pneumoniae and P. mirabilis were the most recovered from ogiri. Similarly, E. coli and K. pneumoniae were the most recovered species from okpehe and ugba samples, indicating lack of process efficiency of the cottage-produced fermented food products. Key words: Coliforms, condiments, fermentation, food-borne pathogens, food poisoning, food safety, HACCP, indicator organisms, indigenous, microbial quality.