Assessment of the sanitary quality of ready to eat sesame, a low moisture street food from Burkina Faso

BACKGROUND: Microbial contamination of edible low moisture food poses a significant public health risk for human. In this study, the microbial quality of sweet dehulled sesame seed croquettes, salted dehulled sesame seed and the raw sesame seed, sold under ambient conditions were examined. The samples were collected in the cities of Burkina Faso. The first type is sweet dehulled sesame seed croquettes (n(1) = 25); the second type is salted dehulled sesame seed (n(2) = 25) and the third type is raw sesame seed (n(3) = 25). Assessment of the microbial quality was based on the total aerobic mesophilic bacteria, the thermotolerant coliforms, the yeasts and moulds, the E. coli, and the Salmonella spp. using ISO methods. RESULTS: The results showed the presence of microorganisms varying from <1.0 to 1.72 × 10(5) CFU g(− 1) for thermotolerant coliforms, from <1.0 to 6,12 × 10(6) CFU g(− 1) for the total mesophilic aerobic flora and from <1.0 to 8.10 × 10(5) CFU g(− 1) for yeasts and moulds. The higher contaminations rates were mostly observed in raw sesame seed samples. No E coli or Salmonella pathogens were detected. Based on international standards of dehydrated food, 50.67% of the ready to eat sesame are satisficing while 17.33% are acceptable and 32% are not satisficing. CONCLUSION: Attention should be emphasized on the processing practices, especially in crowded places where RTE sesames seeds are mostly sold. The high numbers of all microbial groups in these sesame seed samples suggested that the production of RTE sesame seed should be improved by better hygiene. This study highlights also that RTE sesame seed might harbor a wide range of microorganisms when processes are weak of hygiene.