Microbial quality and antimicrobial residue of local and industrial processed fruit juice sold in Tamale, Ghana

Fruits are essential part of human nutrition that provides numerous health benefits. When processed into juice, they are either packaged and stored or consumed immediately. Some reports associate foodborne illness with consumption of natural beverages contaminated with pathogenic microbes. Also, concerns of antimicrobial resistance due to antimicrobial residues in fruit juices has been raised. Thus, this study assessed the microbial quality of fruit juice by determining the incidence and load of E. coli and Salmonella spp., and the presence of antimicrobial residues in locally processed fruit juices (n = 25) and industrially (n = 3) processed fruit juices sold in Tamale, Ghana. Spread plate technique was adopted for isolation and enumeration of bacteria whilst the Premi® test kit was employed for detecting the presence of antimicrobial residue. Neither E. coli nor Salmonella spp. is recorded in all three industrially processed fruit juice samples. However, the locally processed fresh fruit juice samples recorded a prevalence rate of 88% E. coli and 40% Salmonella spp. with microbial load of 1.3 × 10⁴ cfu/ml—9.23 × 10⁴ cfu/ml for E. coli which is above the acceptable limits. Antimicrobial residues were absent in all 28 samples analyzed. The incidence and high E. coli load found in the local fresh fruit juice is of concern. Future studies should elucidate the pathogenicity of the isolates. Also, to avert possible foodborne illness linked with the consumption of local fresh fruit juices within Tamale and to ensure food safety, increase public health surveillance is recommended.