Hygienic handling practices and quality of Ethiopian traditional butter (kibe) along the value chain in selected areas of the central highlands

Abstract

This study was conducted to understand production and market conditions and determine the microbial quality and safety of traditional butter in eight selected dairy potential sites in the Ethiopian central highlands. A total of 320 smallholder farmers, 8 primary dairy cooperatives, 80 open market butter traders and 40 dairy product shops were interviewed using a semi structured questionnaire. A total of 160 butter samples (from 80 smallholder farmers, 40 shops and 40 butter traders) were collected from a subset of previously interviewed respondents for microbial analysis. All respondent from smallholder producers, shops, and dairy cooperatives reported that they wash their hands prior to butter handling with about 74 - 100% reporting to wash their hands with cold water and detergent. However, none of the respondents from open market butter traders washed their hands and butter storage containers. About 75 - 88% of respondents from dairy producers, shops and cooperatives used plastic containers for storing butter, while the remaining used stainless steel. The majority of the sample smallholder dairy farmers, open market traders, shops, and cooperatives had no access to refrigerator instead store containers holding butter in cold water (5 - 30%) or at ambient temperature (67.7 - 92%). The average aerobic mesophilic bacterial, coliform, yeast and mould and lipolytic bacterial counts observed in the present study were 6.23, 2.5, 4.6 and 3.98 log cfuml-1 , respectively. Out of the 160 butter samples, on average, 3.88% were positive for Listeria monocytogenes, while no sample was positive for Salmonella test.Generally, the microbial quality of butter obtained in this study failed to comply with the minimum standard values set for quality butter. Therefore, care should be taken in the raw material used to producing butter, the equipment used for processing and storage, personnel hygiene of personnel handling the product in all the way from production to marketing.