Isolation and Identification of Bacteria Associated with Balangu (Roasted Meat Product) Sold in Bauchi. Nigeria

A total of twenty (20) "balangu" samples (roasted meat product) were collected from five (5) different retail outlet namely: Yelwa, Government Reserve Area, Bayangari, Railway and Mudalawal Motor Park within Bauchi metropolis; Ten (10) samples were spiced and ten (10) others were unspiced.Bacteriological analysis was carried out on the samples for isolation and identification of bacteria associated with such meat products as well total aerobic plate count.Fourteen (14) specie of bacteria which are of public health importance were isolated and identified.The percentage of occurrences of bacteria isolates was highest for Bacillus cereus with 19.6%, 12.5% for Staphylococcus aureus, 10.7% for Escherichia coli, 7.1% for Bacillus alvis, Proteus mirabilis and Streptococcus faecalis, then 5.4% for both Proteus vulgaris and Shigella sp, hence Bacillus alvis, Proteus mirabilis, Salmonella sp, Citrobacter freundii, Klebsiella pneumonia and Enterococcus eurogenase shows the lowest occurrence with 3.5%.Also the mean aerobic plate count (cfu/g) for unspicedbalangu samples was 2.25x10 6 , 2.05x10 6 , 2.47x10 6 , 2.79x10 6 , 2.78x10 6 while that of spiced balangu samples was 2.66x10 6 , 2.36x10 6 , 2.69x10 6 , 2.85x10 6 , 2.89x10 6 for Yelwa, Government Reserve Area, Bayangari, Railway and Mudalawal motor park retail outlet respectively.