BACTERIAL QUALITY OF KUNU-ZAKI AND ZOBO DRINKS SOLD WITHIIN AND AROUND UNIBEN CAMPUS.

ABSTRACT

The consumption of alcohol beverages is on the decrease in certain areas because various religious and health bodies have intensified campaign against such beverages for alternatives this has necessitated the production and sales of locality produced drinks such as Kunu Zaki, Pito, Soya milk and Zobo. Therefore, there is need to evaluate the bacteriological quality of these local beverage drinks. The aim of this work was to carry out bacteriological analyses on kunuzaki and zobo drinks sold within and around UNIBEN campus. Kunu-zaki and zobo drinks samples were collected by purchasing randomly from five different locations around UNIBEN campus, Ugbowo, one each from each location, making a total of five zobo and five kunu-zaki samples. Samples of kunu-zaki and zobo drinks were cultured on Nutrient agar and MacConkey agar plates, incubated at 37o c for 24hour and isolates were identified by standard cultural, morphological and biochemical techniques. The pH values of kunu drinks ranged 2.9-4.0 while that zobo ranged from 2.5-3.2. Colony forming units per milliliter of kunu ranged from 1.0×104 to 9.8×105 while that of zobo ranged from 2.0×104 to 10.5×105 . The means and standard deviation of the heterotrophic coliform counts of kunu and zobo were also determined. Bacterial isolates revealed the presence of Bacillus Spp, Staphylococcus epidermidis Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Proteus mirabilis in zobo and kunu. The results obtained from this study showed that both the kunu and zobo drinks sold within and around UNBEN campus, Ubowo were highly contaminated and also contained different pathogenic microorganisms which can serve as sources of infection to human. Therefore, proper hygienic and sanitary measures need to be enforced during processing and packaging of these local beverage drinks.