Evaluation on the Sensory Preference and Microbiological Properties of Street Vended Ice Cream Eufemio Barcelon * , Leira Montiflor, Joan Berry, Jessica Jasmin and Fatima Macam Sensory Evaluation, The Graduate School, University of Santo Tomas, España, Manila, 1015, Philippines *Corresponding author: Eufemio Barcelon, Sensory Evaluation, The Graduate School, University of Santo Tomas, España, Manila, 1015, Philippines, Tel: +6327315396; E-mail: leiramontiflor@gmail.com Rec date: Mar 17, 2014, Acc date: Apr 26, 2014, Pub date: April 28, 2014 Copyright: © 2014 Barcelon E, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Local street-vended ice cream in the Philippines has been called “dirty” ice cream for due to unsanitary manufacturing processes. This study aims to know the sensory preference of University of Santo Tomas college students in Manila, Philippines on street vended ice cream and their awareness on the possible health hazards linked in the product. Also, this study aims to determine the bacteriological quality of street-vended ice cream per variant. Three different ice cream variants were evaluated by 100 college students, and microbiological test were also conducted. In the three different samples tested, Cheese-flavored street-vended ice cream showed the highest rate in the overall acceptability in terms of taste, appearance and texture. On all three samples, Enterobacter gergoviae, which is known to cause opportunistic infection amongst immune compromised individuals, was found present in all the three ice cream samples. Keywords: Street-vended ice cream; Enterobacter gergoviae; Sensory attributes. Introduction Ice cream is a well-known dessert and snack among all ages in many countries [1]. Reported that ice cream is one of the major products in dairy industry and remains to dominate attention of large segment of the population. Its mixture is made of dairy products (e.g. whole milk, condensed milk, milk powder, cream) sweeteners (sugar, glucose) emulsifiers, stabilizers and colourings. Ice cream can also serve as a topping, add-on or mix-in for other desserts. In the Philippines, tropical climate has contributed to the popularity of ice cream as a "summer treat". It is in line with other Filipino cold desserts as reported by Gimena [2] like fruit shakes, ice scramble and halo-halo (mixed sweetened fruits, beans, tapioca pearls, agar, added with crushed ice and evaporated milk) [2]. Street vended homemade ice cream in the Philippines is also called “sorbetes”. Its usual and popular flavours are “keso” (cheddar cheese flavoured ice cream with cheese bits) “tsokolate” (brown coloured chocolate flavoured ice cream) and ube (violet/purple coloured, taro flavoured ice cream and has some small bits of real taro). The peddler of the said street vended ice cream popularly called as “sorbetero” markets the street-vended ice cream. The ice cream carts can keep the ice cream from melting especially under the hot tropical sun because it is stuffed with shaved ice and salt. Salt is added to decrease the temperature of the melting ice. The brine is cooler than the ice alone; therefore, it has the capacity to facilitate removal of heat from the sides of ice cream containers [3]. According to Gimena [2], local ice cream is being considered as “dirty ice cream” due to its native flavours and less aseptic production procedures. In the study of Orallo et al. [4] regarding microbial analysis of ice cream produced in big and small scale manufacturers in Metro Manila, ice cream from small scale manufacturers were proven to be positive with faecal coliforms which indicates the presence of faecal contamination in the said food item. The Total Coliform Count was beyond what was set by Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD). Despite the microbial contamination of street-vended ice cream, some Filipinos would still continue to patronize it because it is cheaper as said by Gimena [2]. The critical part is majority of ice cream consumers are young children including those of vulnerable age [5]. Food contamination may lead to different illnesses of the gut like loose bowel movement or diarrhea. Further, diarrhea may result to death because it causes dehydration [6]. Ice cream, in general, is vended both in packed containers (e.g. cups, cones, cylindrical metal and plastic containers with cover) and in exposed containers at some retail stores or ice cream parlours which is served by hand in scoops, cones or sundae cups across counter. Thus the microbiological characteristic of the ice cream during retail marketing can also be determined by the post-manufacture management of the item as well as efficiency and sanitary environment during frozen storage [1]. The Filipino sorbetes or street-vended ice cream is placed in an exposed container and served in scoops. According to Soukoulis et al. [7], the quality of ice cream is influenced by several sensory attributes which are flavor, texture, melting quality, package, and appearance. These attributes also affect the consumer preference for different variants of ice cream. In this study, researchers have focused on the effects of flavour, texture and appearance on the overall preference of street vended ice cream. Also, the study will investigate on the microbiological quality of common variants of street-vended ice cream. Materials and Methods Three different variants of street-vended ice cream were given to consumers’ for sensory assessment, a 15 g portion of ice cream samples in a 60 ml plastic cup were served; each consumer is provided Barcelon, et al., J Adv Dairy Res 2014, 2:2 DOI: 10.4172/2329-888X.1000116 Research Article Open Access Volume 2 • Issue 2 • 116 J Adv Dairy Res, an open access journal ISSN:2329-888X A d v a n c e s i n D a i r y R e s e a r c h ISSN: 2329-888X Advances in Dairy Research