Assessment of the Risk of Microbial Contamination of an Urban Crop in the City of Daloa (Côte d'Ivoire): Case of Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.)

The growing population of the city of Daloa, together with its growing urbanization, has a diversified need for food resources. Urban and periurban production of lettuce is a food resource for its people. This study was designed to assess the risk of microbial contamination. For the conduct of the study, first a survey was carried out on different sites of urban production to know the technical process of production. Then, mature lettuce, ready for sale and then consumed from a site, was subjected to microbiological characterization according to the standards in force. Microbiological analyzes revealed a high contamination. For mesophilic aerobic germs, the charges in CFU/g ranged between 1.7x107 and 6.7x107. The loads in CFU/g for yeasts and molds ranged from 3.4x105 to 9.3x105. As for fecal coliforms and enterobacteria, their loads ranged between 1.2x105 to 2.8x105 CFU/g for the first and 7.2x105 to 106 CFU/g for the second. These samples were contaminated with both Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus c + and Salmonella sp. The loads in E. coli and S. aureus c+ ranged between 9.4x104 and 1.8x105 for the first and 4x103 to 1.1x104 CFU/g for the second. Salmonella sp. was found with loads ranging from 6.1x104 to 8.2x104 CFU/g. Empirical production process would increase the risk of microbial contamination. It is necessary to produce healthy lettuce for Daloa’s consumers.