Microbial Quality of Fresh Vegetables in Restaurants Around School

Microbiological contamination of 4 vegetables (garlic, red pepper, perilla leaf and lettuce) collected from 10 restaurants around university was examined. The vegetables were evaluated for total plate count, coliforms, psychrophiles, yeast, and Staphylococcus aureus. The results of total plate count showed the highest value as log CFU/g in lettuce, following by log CFU/g in red pepper, log CFU/g in perilla leaf and log CFU/g in garlic. The contamination level of coliforms and psychrophiles were highest in red pepper with maximum as 4.7 log CFU/g and 8.2 log CFU/g, respectively. Red pepper of psychrophiles showed the highest average value as log CFU/g followed by log CFU/g in lettuce, log CFU/g in perilla leaf and log CFU/g in garlic. The average number of yeasts were highest in perilla leaf with log CFU/g and were lowest in garlic with log CFU/g. The contamination level of S. aureus was detected in 27 samples among the total 40 samples with the range of 0.5-5.2 log CFU/g. In conclusion, the microbial quality of the fresh vegetables evaluated in this study was not very good. Therefore, it needs to be enhanced through the good sanitation management and production and distribution methods to improve the safety of fresh vegetables.