EFFECTS OF DAIRY PROCESSING AND HYGIENIC PRACTICES ON MICROBIAL QUALITY OFMILK AND YOGHURT IN HARAMAYA WOREDA,OROMIA REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Milk is an intricate or a complex biological fluid and by its nature, a good grawthmedium for many microorganisms.Becouse of its physico-chemical properties, its needs strict hygienic condition to avoid contamination of milk with microorganisms.Therefore, the microbial content of milk is a major feature in determining its quality.Microbial contamination can generally occure from three sources such as, with in the udder, exterior of the udder and surface of milk handling and storage equipment. Thus, this study was carried out to assess the microbiological quality of raw caw milk and yoghurt sample collected from household and vendors in Haramaya woreda.A total of 27 milk samples was collected from household and venders and transported to the laboratoryat <4℃ for total plate count, Coliformcounts, Enterobacteriaceaecounts, and yeastand mold counts determination. Mean total plate count,Coliform count, Entrobacteriaceae count,Yeast and mold count for raw milk samples collected from the households were 5.97±0.88,4.96±0.70, 4.54±0.72,and 3.9±0.64 and 4.1±0.66log10 cfu/ml, respectively. The mean values for raw milk samples collected from the equipment of the vendors were 6.5±0.77, 5.0±0.81, 4.2±0.60, and 3.5±0.4 and 3.6±0.43log10 cfu/ml for total plate count,Coliform count,Entrobacteriaceae count,Yeast and mold countsrespectively.The mean total plate count,Coliform count,Entrobacteriaceae count,Yeast and mold count for yoghurt sample collected from the equipment of the household were 5.74±0.51, 4.9±0.7, 4.54±0.85, 4.4±0.71 and 4.5±0.83log10 cfu/ml respectively.The microbial counts for samples collected from the equipment of the vendors were 6.2±1.34, 4.2±0.63, 4.2±0.77±, 4.35±0.07 and 4.2±0.14log10 cfu/ml for total plate count,Coliform count, Entrobacteriaceae count,Yeast and mold count, respectively.To protect the raw and fermented cow milk from spoilage loss and consumers from milk born public health risk, the availability of documented information on the microbiological quality of raw and fermented caw milk across the milk supply chain is critically important as such information may be important for different organization to undertake relevant development intervention on hygienic practices essential for safe milk production and handling.Generally, the present study revealed that milk samples contained higher microbial load than different standards and considered as substandard which will result in public health hazard to the consumer.Therefore, intensive study on microbial status of milk in the study sites should be conducted to assure safety and quality policies to be set to assure the supply of quality milk in the area.It could be concluded that raw and yoghurt milk samples collected from household and vendors were severely contaminated with total bacterial count, coliform count,entrobacterial count, yeast and molds, with exceeding the respective acceptable limits.