A survey on the microbial quality of Wheat flour used in bakeries and semi-industrial packaged lavash breads in Bandar Abbas city

Wheat products such as flour and bread account for a significant part of the diet in Iran. Thus, microbial contamination of these products can cause various diseases in the community. In this regard, the aim of this study was to determine the microbial quality of flour used in bakeries and semi-industrial packaged lavash breads in Bandar abbas city. In this descriptive study, the flour and bread samples were collected from bakeries and food supermarkets, respectively, and their microbial quality and moisture were determined according to the methods proposed by Iranian National Standards Organization. The obtained data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and SPSS and Excel softwares. The results showed that none of the bread samples were contaminated with coliform and Escherichia coli. With respect to the national permissible limit of 103 CFU mold/g for bread, the number of molds exceeded national permissible limit in 24% of the bread samples. Furthermore, the number of total microorganisms and molds in 25% and 10% of flour samples exceeded national permissible limits (105 CFU/g for total microorganisms and 5×103 CFU/g for molds). This study revealed that the microbial content of some flour and packaged bread samples collected from Bandar Abbas exceeded national permissible limits. This situation is a matter of concern, especially for the breads contaminated to molds, due to probable production of toxins and direct consumption of the contaminated bread. Therefore, regulatory authorities should focus more on the monitoring of the microbial contamination of packaged foods