Microbial Quality and Antimicrobial Residue of Local and Industrial Processed Fruit Juice Sold in Tamale, Ghana

Abstract

Fruits are essential part of human nutrition that provides numerous health benefits. When processed into juice, they are either packaged and stored or consumed immediately. There are reports on contraction of foodborne illness due to consumption of these natural beverages possibly from contamination by pathogenic microbes. Also, concerns of antimicrobial resistance due to antimicrobial residues in fruit juices has been raised. Thus, this study assessed the microbial quality of fruit juice by determining the microbial load of E. coli and Salmonella spp., and the presence of antimicrobial residues in locally processed fruit juices (n= 25) and industrially (n= 3) processed fruit juices sold in Tamale, Ghana. Spread plate technique was adopted for isolation and enumeration of bacteria. Whereas the presence of antimicrobial residue was determined using the Premi® test kit. Neither E. coli nor Salmonella spp. is recorded in all three industrially processed juice samples. However, the locally processed juice samples recorded 88 % E. coli and 40 % Salmonella spp. with microbial load above the acceptable limits. Antimicrobial residues were absent in all 28 samples analyzed. The incidence of high microbial load found in the locally processed fruit juice is of concern to avert possible foodborne illness linked with the consumption of fruit juices within Tamale.