Microbial safety of local dried fruit, Garcinia Atroviridis (Asam Keping)

Food safety was a global issue that affects food production, processing and human consumption. Given that the drying process of foods enables to prohibit microbial growth. However, the spike number of foodborne cases worldwide that related to low moisture food caused by pathogens presence recently have proved that pathogenic microorganisms can persist for long periods in dried foods even under low water activity conditions. The study assessed the microbiological safety of local dried fruit that is frequently used for human consumption which is Garcinia atroviridis or locally known as asam keping (AK). This product may be subjected to a wide spectrum of microbial contamination during pre-and post-harvest and they can display high microbial counts due to conventional production. Four different media growth were used for microbial evaluation on the samples, to determine the presence of total aerobic count (NA), total Salmonella spp. count (SSA), B. cereus (BCA) and E. coli (EMBA). The analysis has shown all three AK sample has exceeded the limit of microbial content for total aerobic count (TAC) (< 106 CFU/mL) and B. cereus counts (< 104 CFU/mL) where AK 3 shows the highest contamination rate with 24.5×107 CFU/mL for TAC and 5.00×105 CFU/mL for B. cereus count. While there were no detection of Salmonella spp. and E. coli presence for all AK samples. The presence of focused pathogenic organisms in these dried fruit products indicates that consumers may be exposed to a public health risk. Hence, proper implementation of GMPs and personal hygiene are in need of improvement, particularly for conventional or home-based food production.