Abstracto

Prevalence of spoilage microorganism, Pseudomonas spp. on restaurants cutting boards collected in Seri Kembangan, Malaysia.

Abdul-Mutalib NA, Osman M , Amin Nordin S , Ishida N, Tashiro K, Sakai K , Tashiro Y , Maeda T, Shirai Y

Due to the tropical climate that promotes the growth of most microorganisms, the food service industry in Malaysia faces a lot of challenges in order to ensure quality foods are served to the customers. One of the bacteria that are associated with food spoilage is Pseudomonas spp., and the presence of these bacteria on cutting boards could cross-contaminate food items during food handling. This study performed pyrosequencing analysis to investigate the existence of microbial communities on cutting boards collected from restaurants in Seri Kembangan, Malaysia. Most of the samples were dominated by Flavobacteriales, Enterobacteriales, Lactobacillales, and Pseudomonadales. This study discovered that, all samples of cutting boards were contaminated with Pseudomonas spp. With the mean bacterial count of 1.4 × 106 cfu/cm2, 5.1 × 105 cfu/cm2 and 5.6 × 106 cfu/cm2 on samples collected from clean, moderately clean and less clean food premises, respectively. The study shows that the contamination level of Pseudomonas spp. was not significantly different in different grades of food premises. Regardless of the status and grades of the food premises, they have the same likelihood to introduce spoilage bacteria like Pseudomonas spp. from cutting board to food if they neglect correct food handling measures. Therefore, all food handlers need to prioritize safe food handling to avoid food contamination and spoilage.