Hygienic-sanitary evaluation of Minas Frescal cheese sold in the City of Botucatu, São Paulo

• Grant number: 15/08824-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2015
• End date: December 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Microbiology - Applied Microbiology
• Principal Investigator: Vera Lúcia Mores Rall
• Grantee: Murilo Mariz Queiroz
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IBB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Minas fresh cheese is very popular in Brazil and marketing it at low prices leads to its acceptance to large sections of the population. To be produced, the law requires the use of pasteurized milk as the base material, however, this requirement is often ignored. Being fresh and moist, the shelf time of Minas fresh cheese is short, requiring to market the product after it has been manufactured. The arrival of this product to markets, however, usually exceeds around 7 to day 10 days after the date of its production. The use of raw milk as the base material, the absence of maturation and the ease of contamination during processing are examples of factors that compromise the microbiological quality of cheeses. Since they are ready-to-eat foods, individuals are passively susceptible to toxinfections mainly caused by Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella, pathogenic Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes. The hygienic-sanitary evaluation appears as a way of investigating the imminent risks of eating cheese. Therefore, this study aims to quantify coagulase positive staphylococci, determine the most probable number of coliforms and investigate the presence of Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes in Minas fresh cheese sold in the city of Botucatu, on dates close to its manufacturing and on its expiration date. Staphylococcus strains will be subjected to research of enterotoxins encoding genes A, B, C and D. With the information obtained from these data, the cheese will be assessed qualitatively according to Brazilian food safety law.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

MURILO MARIZ QUEIROZ; BRUNA FERNANDA ROSSI; IVANA GIOVANNETTI CASTILHO; VERA LUCIA MORES RALL. Avaliação higiênico-sanitária de queijos Minas frescal comercializados na cidade de Botucatu, São Paulo. Arq. Inst. Biol., v. 84, 2018-02-01. (15/08824-8)