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Abstract

The microbiological surveys were made, on commercial wheat flour, breadcrumbs, and processed or seasoned flour products such as french frying powder, cake mixes and so on. The microbial counts in wheat flour were less than 104/g, while bread crumbs, particularly moist crumbs, were contaminated with considerably high counts of bacteria and fungi. Constituents of bacterial flora were different among each products. It was shown that large numbers of bacilli were detected from processed flour products at a high frequency, while cocci were frequently isolated from most crumbs. Among 343 Bacillus isolates from most samples, 32.4% were B. subtilis, 33.5% B. licheniformis, 14% B. cereus, and 9.6% B. pumilus. B. subtilis and B. licheniformis were common in many of flour staples, and B. cereus was recovered from half of processed flour product samples.