The potential of caffeic acid in reducing the rate of milk spoilage by bacillus cereus.
Abstract
The dairy industry has faced a problem of milk preservation during diary processing which is affected by the level of microbial population activity in the milk, and caffeic acid is described as antibacterial. The aim of this work was to determine the potential of caffeic acid in reducing the rate of milk spoilage by Bacillus cereus. The agar well diffusion method was used to screen for the antimicrobial activity of caffeic acid against Bacillus cereus. Total count method by spread plate was used to determine the effectiveness of caffeic acid in reducing the microbial growth rate in milk after storage. Data analysis was conducted using one way Anova in R- package. Research findings from this study show that caffeic acid has significant antimicrobial activity against Bacillus cereus. The inhibition procedure that was carried out revealed that as the concentration of caffeic acid was increased from 30% to 50% to 100%, the diameter of the zone of inhibition also increased. The growth of bacteria continued to increase at a high rate even with increase of the concentration of caffeic acid from 0.05% to 0.075%. 0.1%. Caffeic acid showed a slightly reduced growth rate where as 0.1% potassium sorbate greatly reduced the growth of bacteria. However, caffeic acid was not significantly effective in reducing the rate of growth of bacteria in milk.