ISSN 2384-5066
Abstract
Street vended foods are those sold in the street by street vendors mostly for snack times. Potato chips are one of the popular snacks which are sold in streets. Bacterial count in prepared food like potato chips is a key factor during assessing the quality and safety of food. In the present study an attempt was made to assess the bacteriological quality of street vended potato chips. The objective of the study is to determine the bacteriological quality of the street vended potato chips collected from Azezo and kebele 18. Samples from the street vended chips were collected in Azezo and Kebele18. Ten gram of potato chips was added to 90 ml of buffered peptone water and mixed well, and serial dilution up to 10-5was prepared for each samples. From a tube containing 10-5, 0.1 ml of suspension was transferred and spread on to Plate count agar, MacConkey agar, Mannitol salt agar and Salmonella-shigella agar plate and incubated at 37oC for 24 hours. Then colonies were counted and morphologically different colonies were selected for further study. The selected isolates were characterized based on morphological, biochemical and physiological characteristics. The total plate count, total Enterobacteriaceae count, Staphylococcal count and Salmonella Shigella count result showed that 95% (38), 22.5% (9), 62.5% (25) and 15% (7) samples were contaminated by microorganisms, respectively. Based on morphological, biochemical and physiological characterization, genus Escherichia, Staphylococcus, Salmonella and Shigella were identified from potato chips collected from Azezo and Kebele 18. Based on the result the standard quality and safety levels of the potato chips are not acceptable. Therefore, the utilization of such contaminated foods poses a series health problem to the consumers. This can provide information for responsible organization to make trainings and awareness creation to street venders and consumers to solve health problems and outbreak caused by food borne pathogens.
Keywords: Bacteriological quality, Contamination, Gondar town, potato chips, street venders