Mycological evaluation of a ground cocoa- based beverage

Cocoa beans (Theobroma cacao) are processed into cocoa beverage through fermentation, drying, roasting and grounding of the seed to powder. The mycological quality of 39 samples of different brand of these cocoa – based beverage referred to as ‘eruku oshodi’ collected from 3 different markets in south – west Nigeria was determined by serial dilution using the pour plate method on Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) and Harold agar. The most frequent genera of moulds in the samples investigated were Aspergillus and Mucor with each having an incidence of 43.6%. The other moulds recovered in decreasing order of occurrence were Rhizopus (23.1%), Penicillium (18.0%) and Mycelia sterilia (18.0%). The yeast recovered was mainly Saccharomyces. The health implications of the isolated fungi were highlighted thus calling for improved hygienic practices in production of the beverages.