Brazilian Ultra High Temperature (UHT) milk consumption has increased during the last decade from 187 to 4,200 million liters. In the continuous UHT process, milk is submitted for 2-4 s to 130-150ºC, in a continuous flow system with immediate refrigeration and aseptical packing in hermetic packages. This research had the purpose to verify the incidence of B. cereus species from the B. cereus group, in UHT milk. In 1998 high indexes of these organisms were reported, reaching 34.14% of the analyzed samples. Beyond this fact, there was the need to establish methods and processes adjusted for correct identification of B. cereus. Thus, commercial sterility tests of 6,500 UHT milk packages were investigated in two assays, after ten days incubation at 37ºC and... |