Milk is very susceptible to growth and development of many microorganisms because it is rich in nutrients and
has suitable condition for the growth of microbes. The objective of the present investigation was to determine the
total bacterial count and prevalence of Escherichia coli in raw milk from milk collection centers in Markazi
Province. A total 248 milk samples were collected from 31 centers in November 2012 and were analyzed according
to standard methods to find the prevalence of E. coli. None of the raw milk samples under investigation, had
superior or grade 1 quality. Only 9.09% of the samples were classified with grade 3 quality and 90.9% were nonstandard. The mean of microbial total count in logarithm base were 6.8±.44 and average prevalence of E. coli in the
samples was 29.14%. The cities of Arak and Shazand have the lowest and the highest microbial total count,
respectively. In general, the result of this study showed unsatisfactory conditions of the milk in milk collection
centers of the Markazi province.
کلید واژگان :
Raw milk; food safety; Escherichia coli; microbial total count
