ABSTRACT

Garri is a staple food eaten mostly by the mid-western part of Nigeria as Red-Garri and white Garri. While the western part eats it as Ijebu-Garri.  There are several factors which influence the quality of Garri, processing conditions and storage conditions. Garri is a very popular cassava product in Owerri City and across Nigeria due to its wide economic, social and geographical preference but there is little knowledge about the health hazards such as food poisoning that could result from mishandling, unsatisfactory sterilization of products and packages, storage and distribution of Garri. Much work has not been carried out locally to isolate pathogenic organisms that could cause damages to consumers’ health. Therefore effort was put into analyzing smaller-scale local manufactured products, where it is considered that hygienic conditions may not be of highest priority (Ainsworth R; 2004).  The general processing method of Garri, has been found to be generally unhygienic processed, and may cause serious health/environmental hazards to the final consumers. (Obadina, et al., 2009), observed that after fermentation of the cassava product (Garri) a change in odour was observed. This could be caused by the fermentation process involved, yielding unwanted organisms, therefore causing smell to the final products (Obadina, et al., 2009).  Therefore due to other previous research and findings, Garri is known to have high microbial content, which may be detrimental to human health.