MICROBIOLOGY

The popularity of the plant- based milk drinks is on the increase as substitutes to the traditional dairy products due to the growing consumer awareness of the health, sustainability and ethical concerns. Although plant-based milk drinks have nutritional ad vantages, there are major challenges in production, storage and distribution and has been associated with higher chances of food-borne disease. Some studies have indicated bacterial contaminants in plant-based milk drinks including soya milk, kunu and coconut milk. This research paper sought to examine the bacterial and fungal contamination profile of plant-based milk drinks during storage. The milk drinks are the plant-based ones which were bought in three Benin City markets and they consist
of the samples of kunu, soya, tiger nut and coconut milk. The enumeration and isolation of bacteria and fungi were done using the pour plate method. Identification was done using the cultural, morphological and biochemical characteristics of the isolates. The heterotrophic bacterial counts had a mean of 1.90+-0.53x105 (soya milk) -82.40+-6.90 x 105 cfu/mL (coconut milk). The total Salmonella-Shigella count was between 1.10+-0.48 x 105 cfu/mL (tiger nut milk) and too numerous to count (coconut milk). The average fungal counts were between 2.40+-0.25 (soya milk) -44.00+-0.00 x 105 cfu/mL (tiger nut milk). The identified bacterial isolates are Bacillus cereus (16.00%), (25.00%), Pseudomonas sp. (8.33%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (25.00%), Bacillus subtilis (16.60%), Staphylococcus sp. (25.00%) and Salmonella sp. (16.60%). Saccharomyces sp. (16.60%), Mucor sp. (8.33%), Penicillium sp. (16.60%) and
Aspergillus flavus (25.00%) were the most common genera of the fungi.