Abstract

Fresh and unpasteurized fruit juice is common in restaurants, cafeteria, hotels and juice house of Ethiopian cities. Most fruit juices contain sufficient nutrients that could support microbial growth. The current investigation was carried out to investigate the microbiological quality and processing conditions of fruit juice vended in Shewarobit town. Purposive sampling technique was employed to collect sixteen fruit juice samples comprising of eight avocado and eight papaya from five cafeterias and three restaurants of Shewarobit town from November 2017 to January 2018. A wide mouth sterile bottle was used to collect fruit juice. Collected samples were diluted and 0.1 mL inoculated on plate count agar to determine total viable count, on violet red bile agar to determine total coliform count, on mannitol salt agar to determine total Staphylococcal count and on Sabouraud’s dextrose agar for count of yeast and molds. Questionnaires were delivered for juice vendors to obtain information on demographic characteristics and conditions for processing. There is no significant statistical difference between numbers of microbial count (p> 0.05). The total viable count was found in the range of 1.3 × 10⁵ to 2.9 ×10⁵ cfu/ mL. The total coliform count was found to be between 0.1 × 10⁵ and 2.4 × 10⁵ cfu/mL. Staphylococci count was between 0.2 × 10⁵ and 1.7 × 10⁵ cfu/mL. The total yeast and mould counts for all fruit juice were in the range of 1.4 × 10⁵ to 2.7 × 10⁵ cfu/mL. Microbiological quality of most of the fruit juices were found to be not satisfactory when compared with Gulf region standard. Therefore, regular supervision and training about safe processing and handling is very crucial for juice vendors to improve microbiological quality of fruit juice.

Key words: Fruit juice, microbial count, microbial safety.