Evaluación de la calidad higiénica de leche cruda bovina recolectada en tres centros de acopio de Sierra, Costa y Oriente

Abstract

One of the most consumed products at national level is milk from cattle in Ecuador, so the hygienic and sanitary quality is an essential parameter to ensure the safety of the product providing consumers with milk suitable for consumption. The analysis of bacteria by total bacterial count (TBC) is the preferred measure to check the amount of pathogenic microorganisms in a milk sample, in which two methods are applied, the traditional method that allows the counting of Colony Forming Units CFU/ml by sowing on a plate and the alternative method that performs it by the flow cytometry technique that expresses the count by Individual Bacterial Count IBC/ml. The objective of this study was to evaluate the hygienic quality of raw bovine milk from collection centers/companies of the Ecuadorian highlands, coast and east by evaluating the results obtained by both methods and developing a correlation curve to determine which method is the most efficient, as well as to determine the pathogenic microorganisms in the samples analyzed in order to determine the causes of their presence. For this analysis, 200 milk samples with values from 30 to 3000 CBT's were used; the results were obtained under the test of both methods following the permissible limits of ISO Standard 16297 and ISO Standard 4833-1:2013 and the recognition of bacteria by specific biochemical tests. It could be concluded that the correlation between the two methods is linear, so both are viable for the Total Bacterial Count, in addition to the fact that two contaminating bacteria were the predominant ones in the study, according to the tests performed.