Plant Foods for Human Nutrition 55: 111–118, 2000. © 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Aerobic spore-forming bacteria and chemical composition of some Nigerian fermented soup condiments A.I. SANNI 1 , G.S. AYERNOR 1,2 , E. SAKYI-DAWSON 1,2 and S. SEFA-DEDEH 2 1 Department of Botany and Microbiology, University of Ibadan, Nigeria; 2 Department of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Ghana, Ghana Received 8 October 1998; accepted in revised form 5 October 1999 Abstract. A total of 97 strains of spore-forming Bacillus were isolated from 45 samples of three Nigerian fermented condiments, obtained from retail markets located in Southwestern Nigeria. The isolates were identified as B. subtilis (33%), B. pumilus (19%), B. licheniformis (22%), B. brevis (9%), B. megaterium (12%) and B. polymyxa (5%). The microbial load of the condiments showed that the average count of spore-formers was between 10 7 to 10 9 cfu/g. The moisture contents of iru, ugba and ogiri were 57.18%, 46.32% and 42.34%, respectively, while the protein contents were 18.26%, 17.17% and 17.96%. The percentage fat was 29.88%, 40.25% and 44.14% for iru, ugba and ogiri. The ash content ranged from 5.8 to 6.1%; a 0.1% titratable acidity and pH values above 7.0 were obtained for the three condiments. Key words: Bacillus, Fermentation, Iru, Ogiri, Ugba Introduction In sub-Saharan Africa, fermented vegetable proteins are used as flavoring agents in soups and sauces. Apart from their strong and pleasing aroma, they also contribute to the protein and essential fatty acid intake. Fermentation of these vegetable proteins is usually done in the moist solid state by random inoculation brought about by various indigenous species of microorganisms. In Nigeria, some of the commonly used condiments are ogiri from melon seeds [1], iru from African locust beans [2], ugba from African oil bean seeds [3–5], ogiri from caster seeds [6, 7], dawadawa from soybeans [8], okpehe from Prosopis africana seeds [9], and owoh from cotton seeds [10, 11]. Although microorganisms that have been implicated in the fermentation processes of the above condiments are diverse, and frequently unpredict- able, there seems to be a general agreement on the predominance of the spore-forming bacteria species, especially Bacillus, as the main fermenting