Isolation and Identification of Psychotropic Fungal Contamination in Food Storage Refrigerators in Ahvaz City Restaurants

 Food-borne pathogens are one of the most important problems in less developed and developed countries. Commercial refrigerators are a potential source of fungal contamination that causes food spoilage, food-borne intestinal infectious diseases or mycotoxin diseases.

 The purpose of this study was to determine the distribution of psychotropic fungi in food storage refrigerators (n = 50) with temperatures above and below 0ºC at selected restaurants (n = 25) located in the city of Ahvaz, Iran.

 Samples were collected from the surfaces of the refrigerators by using sterile swab sticks pre-moistened with sterile distilled water, and then each collected sample was plated out on Sabouraud dextrose agar medium. Finally, all fungi were counted and identified based on macroscopic and microscopic characteristics.

 According to our results, 100% of the sample refrigerators showed fungal contamination. Cladosporium sp. (42.34%) and Mucor sp. (0.06%) had the highest and the lowest frequency of fungi recovered from our research, respectively. Furthermore, the P value calculated indicated a significant correlation between refrigerators above 0ºC and refrigerators below 0ºC (P < 0.00001).

 The presence of fungi in commercial refrigerators could be an indicator of a potential source of food spoilage and food-borne diseases. Therefore increased education, and proper packaging and refrigerator management are recommended since regular cleaning of these refrigerators is important in order to prevent food-borne diseases and other health risks.