Isolation And Identification Of Bacterial Flora From Garri Sold At Ogige Market, Nsukka, Enugu State

The aim of this work is to identify the bacteria found in Garri sold within Nsukka.

Cassava (Manihot spp) is an important crop widely cultivated in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although, the crop is grown virtually in all parts of the sub-continent, production is specific in the humid tropics. Garri, a product from cassava, constitutes more than 70% of total cassava consumption in Nigeria. There are two types of cassava which are sweet and bitter.).

A  food  safety  problem  with  cassava  is  that  cassava  roots  contain  considerable  quantities of  cyanide  which  occurs  in  the  form  of  cyanogenic  glycosides,  primarily  linamarin  and  a small  amount  of  lotaustralin. Garri is the most popular fermented food product made from cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) and is widely consumed as processed by millions of people in West Africa where it forms a significant part of their diet.

There are different process of Garri processing: peeling, Washing, grating, fermentation, dewatering, disintegration and sieving, roasting. The total microbal loads of the 20 samples of garri used were 5.2 x 102 C.F.U/ml.

white garri microbial load is 1.9 x 103C.F.U/ml and Red garri microbial load is 1.6 x 102 C.F.U/ml Different methods where used in the identification of the bacteria found in Garri which are: Macroscopy ( gram staining) and biochemical test: indole test, sugar fermentation test, spore staining, motility, citrate test, oxidase test, catalase test.

The bacteria that were identified are Escherichia spp, Pseudomonas spp, Bacillus spp, Micrococcus spp, staphylococcus spp, Klebsiella spp.