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One hundred samples of commercial infant formula bought in shops in the Poznan region (Poland) and Cairo region (Egypt) were investigated. Samples were analyzed for aerobic plate counts (APC), total Bacillus cereus (TBC), and incidences of Bacillus spp. and coliforms. The mean APC and TBC did not show any important variation with country, being practically the same in products bought in Poland and Egypt. All commercial infant formula analyzed immediately after opening were of satisfactory bacteriological quality, exhibiting APC lower than 104 CFU g−1 (mean 4.9 × 102) and TBC lower than 103 CFU g−1 (mean 1.1 × 102). However, 60% of the examined fruit juice and ready‐to‐feed infant formula presented TBC above the recommendation safety limit after storage at 22C for 72 h and at 35C for 48 h. In most cases the mean log APC and TBC were highest (P > 0.05) for fruit juice and ready‐to‐feed infant formula stored at elevated temperature (35 ± 1C).

Samples of some fast foods were collected from different restaurants in Qena city during winter season (2007/2008) to investigate their microbiological quality. The questionnaire appeared that most common fast foods were: bean cake (tamia or flafel) sandwiches, liver sandwiches, koshari dishes, faba bean (medamis) sandwiches, hawawshi sandwiches, béchamel macaroni dishes, shawerma sandwiches, luncheon sandwiches and roasted kofta sandwiches. All investigated fast foods were contaminated by one or more of examined bacteria i.e; Bacillus cereus, Shigella spp., Salmonella spp., Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Pseudomonas spp., while, fungi such as Rhizops spp. and Pencillum spp. were found in some tested samples. Most of investigated samples tended to have some pathogenic count higher than the recommendation safety limit proposed by Egyptian Organization for Standardization and Quality Control (EOSQC), which means that those foods may be unsafe enough for human feeding. Thus, the consumption of fast foods outdoors should be limited and substituted with anther more healthy foods.