Bioload of the Marketed Available Pickels Brand in Karachi

Abstract

Fermented foods are now widely using by the people as they are very easy to make and longer shelf life. Many fermented products are very common and available in the market nowadays; one of them is pickle which is well known in the whole world especially in Eastern countries.. Although as being a fermented product it also contains Lactobacilli but unfortunately when there is a high load of other contaminated harmful organisms they fail to compete with them and the other harmful organisms become dominant which not only spoil the pickle but also cause harm to the people. Therefore, it was the need to examine the pickle and search the ways which leads to accompanying the pure or hygienic pickle. Our study based on the determination of microbial load present in this type. We found out growth of bacteria and Fungi like Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus and Rhizopus and bacterial growth like Escherichia coli, Bacillus and Lactobacillus acidophilus were isolated from the pickles sample used in this study. We found out that the pickle of Rizwan Company had 1100 colonies in 100 ml of sample which can be extremely dangerous for consumption and the pickle from another marketed available brand Company showed the lowest amount i.e. 28 colonies in 100 ml of sample. Other brands that were tested also showed higher amount of organisms in between 150 to 460 colonies in 100 ml of sample. Elimination of the microbial load of pickle also performed on the pickle of National Company that gave a marvelous result the amount of organisms is fallen down from 150 colonies to 11 colonies in 100 ml of sample. This study provides preliminary work and open new doors in assessing and improving the quality of pickles available in the market.