Research Article Microbiological Quality of Fresh Produce from Open Air Markets and Supermarkets in the Philippines

Copyright © 2014 Pierangeli G. Vital et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This study is the first in the Philippines to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the prevalence of bacterial pathogens and somatic phages in retailed fresh produce used in salad preparation, namely, bell pepper, cabbage, carrot, lettuce, and tomato, using culture and molecular methods. Out of 300 samples from open air and supermarkets, 16.7 % tested positive for thermotolerant Escherichia coli, 24.7 % for Salmonella spp., and 47 % for somatic phages. Results show that counts range from 0.30 to 4.03 log 10 CFU/g for E. coli, 0.66 to ≥2.34 log 10 MPN/g for Salmonella spp., and 1.30 to ≥3.00 log 10 PFU/g for somatic phages. Statistical analyses show that there was no significant difference in the microbial counts between open air and supermarkets