Assessment of the microbiological effectiveness of five sanitizers in reducing the population of Enterococcus feacalis isolated from salad vegetables- Sanitation and hygiene improvement study

Salad vegetables in most cases do not undergo heat treatment before consumption despite high possibility of contamination by pathogenic bacteria. The microbiology quality of the cabbage, carrot and cucumber sold in Ado-Ekiti were investigated in this study. The association of the Enterococcus faecalis with the vegetables and its ability to produce biofilm grow in the presence of antibiotics were investigated. The ability of the bacterium to tolerate common vegetable sanitizers was also studied. The bioburden of unwashed vegetables were higher than the washed vegetables. The microbial load of the vegetables ranged between 4.93 and 3.85 Log10 CFU/g. Washing reduced the number of organism in the vegetable by 22.72. 23.38 and 38.13% in cabbage, cucumber and carrot respectively. Enterococcus faecalis strains were highly susceptible to gentamicin. In decreasing order, erythromycin, cloxacillin and cotrimoxazole showed the least effectiveness on the isolates. Out of 127 selected isolates, only 83(65.35%) were produced biofilm. The susceptibility of E. facalis strains to different vegetable sanitizers (acetic acid, hydrogen peroxide, sodium bicarbonate, sodium chloride and sodium hypochloride) was also reported. Contamination should be avoided from the field till they get to the final consumers since contaminated salad vegetables pose a great threat to the health of the public.