A preliminary study on the quality and safety of street-vended warankasi (a Nigerian soft white cheese) from Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the quality and safety of street-vended warankasi, a Nigerian soft white cheese. Design/methodology/approach - A total of 80 samples were collected in two batches of 40 samples each in January and June, 2015 from eight major markets from Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. The samples were analyzed for the proximate components, quality indices (total soluble nitrogen, TSN and volatile fatty acid, VFA), and for the presence of pathogenic bacteria, Campylobacter jejuni (CJ), Listeria monocytogenes (LM), Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MT), Salmonella spp. (SS), Escherichia coli (EC), and Yersinia enterocolitica (YE), and heavy metals such as (lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg), and chromium (Cr) concentrations. Findings - The results revealed that the values of moisture, protein, fat, crude fiber, and ash contents (%) of warankasi samples were in the range 46.26 +/- 1.41-51.24 +/- 1.61, 33.92 +/- 1.18-37.26 +/- 1.42, 6.74 +/- 0.64-8.33 +/- 0.96, 1.27 +/- 0.02-1.73 +/- 0.09, 1.31 +/- 0.03-1.78 +/- 0.08, respectively. The values of TSN (mgN/kg) and VFA (%) were in the range of 1.19+0.10-2.54+0.18, and 5.79+0.19-9.12+0.30, respectively. The results further revealed the presence of CJ and SS and the absence of LM, MT, EC, and YE from the warankasi samples. Heavy metals detected in all the warankasi samples were generally below the maximum acceptable limits set by the World Health Organization for Pb (0.3 ppm), Cd (0.2 ppm), Hg (0.2 ppm), and Cr (0.5 ppm) with the exemption of samples from Iwo Road and Ojoo which were higher than other samples. Research limitations/implications - This research work was conducted between January and June, 2015 and better results could be obtained if the study had been done for a longer period of time. Practical implications - The paper helps in showing the quality and microbial safety of street-vended warankasi and this may bring imperative information and general consciousness on the microbiological safety of warankasi. Originality/value - Much has been done concerning warankasi processing but little work has been done concerning street-vended warankasi. Therefore, this study was carried out to assess it.