Occurrence Of Aspergillus flavus And Aspergillus parasiticus In Some Ready-To-Eat (RTE) Food In Umuahia

ABSTRACT

This study was carried to determine the occurrence of Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus in meat pie, fish roll and peanut butter obtained from Umudike, Umuahia and Ahiaeke. A total of 27 samples were analyzed, 9 samples of meat pie, 9 samples of fish roll and 9 samples of peanut butter were collected from Umudike, Umuahia and Ahiaeke respectively. Aspergillus flavus was isolated from the meat pie Umudike, fish roll from Umuahia, and peanut butter from Umudike, Umuahia and Ahiaeke. It occurred one time in the nine samples of meat pie analyzed with a percentage occurrence 1 (8.3%) two times in the nine samples of fish roll analyzed with a percentage occurrence 2 (16.7%) and three times in the nine samples of peanut butter analyzed with a percentage occurrence 3 (25%. Meat pie from Umudike gave mean values of fungi count, 2.0x10⁴cfu/g, 4.0x10⁵ cfu/g and 4.8x10⁵cfu1g. The fungi load range from 1.8 x10⁴ cfu/g to 6.2x 10⁴cfu/g the samples meat pie in day 1 were not significantly different from each other statistically in Ahiaeke while there were significant different among other meat pie samples from the same location in (Ahiaeke).The same was seen in the peanut butter from Ahiaeke as it showed no significant difference in day 1, day2 and day3. Day 3 meat pie and peanut butter from Ahiaeke has the highest number of fungi load, which is 6.2 x 10⁵cfu/g and 5.0 x 10⁵cfu/g respectively, which was as a result of the low level of sanitation there.