Microbial Quality and Safety of Ready-Made Cooked Foods Catered at Ambo Town Street

Ready to eat foods are arranged, fitted or placed for immediate use causing no delay for lack of being prepared and usually consumed after preparations by removing non edible parts. The main objective of this study was to determine microbial quality and safety of ready-to -eat cooked foods vended at street of Ambo town. For this study a total of 60 samples of street foods comprising 20 each of meat based sandwich, lentil based sambussa and oil based biscuits were collected from different sales near-by street. Microbial quality and safety of collected food samples were analyzed using selective media: Mannito Salt Agar, Nutrient Agar and Violet Red Bile Agar were used for Staphylococcus, Aerobic Mesophilicand Coliform Counts, respectively. The result indicated that microbial load of lentil based sambussa during Aerobic Mesophilic Count was the highest (2.6x103cfu/g) as compared to Staphylococcus and coliform counts. In coliform count, the lowest microbial load was indicated on lentil based sambussa (3.5 x 102cfu/g).

Keywords: Microbial load, Quality, Safety, Staphylococcus count, Coliform count