Antimicrobial effect of smoking milk handling containers’ inner surfaces as a preservation method in pastoral systems in Kenya

Résumé

Pastoral communities in Kenya have used smoke from specific herbs as a technique of disinfecting milk-handling containers, preserving milk and to impart a characteristic desired flavour to raw camel milk. The smoking is expected to extend the shelf life of the camel milk, despite the high environmental temperatures (>28 °C). The aim of this study was to determine the antimicrobial effect of smoke on plastic milk-handling container surfaces and determine the efficacy of smoking as a preservation method. Smoked plastic milk-handling containers ( n = 25) were conveniently collected from pastoral community households in Isiolo County, Kenya. Two containers were prepared by either washing and rinsing using hot water to be the negative control or rinsing and disinfecting using a chlorine-based agent to be the positive control. The inner surfaces of the containers were aseptically swabbed and analysed for total viable count (TVC), total coliform count (TCC), and lactic acid bacteria (LAB). The TVC from the smoked containers was 4.64 ± 0.43 log 10 cfu/cm 2 while the TCC was 4.00 ± 0.66 log 10 cfu/cm 2 and the LAB were 3.75 ± 0.59 log 10 cfu/cm 2 , and those of the negative control (plain-water-washed non-smoked plastic container) were 5.99 ± 1.03, 5.07 ± 0.91, and 4.81 ± 0.81 log 10 cfu/cm 2 for TVC, TCC, and LAB, respectively. The mean microbial load of milk bulked in smoked containers was 5.10 ± 0.96, 3.61 ± 2.13, and 3.84 ± 2.22 log 10 cfu/ml for TVC, TCC, and LAB, respectively, while the mean microbial load of milk bulked in chlorine-disinfected containers was 5.23 ± 1.11, 2.46 ± 2.18, and 2.04 ± 1.35 log 10 cfu/ml for TVC, TCC, and LAB, respectively. The common types of microbes were Gram-negative rods (57.3 %), Gram-positive rods (25.5 %), and Gram-positive cocci (17.2 %). The most prevalent coliforms from all types of the containers and milk were Escherichia coli spp. and Enterobacter spp. while the LAB were Lactobacillus spp. and Lactococcus spp. Therefore, smoking of milk-handling containers can be recommended as an effective method for disinfection of milk-handling containers and as a method of preservation of camel milk in the arid and semi-arid areas of Kenya, where the cold chain or processing infrastructure is poor.

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