Safety status and physical-chemical composition of Plaisentif cheese

This is the first attempt to describe Plaisentif cheese. Plaisentif is a traditional cheese produced in the Western Alps and obtained from the raw milk of cows fed on pastures during the violet flowering period. This cheese has never been studied. The aim of this work was evaluate the safety status of milk and cheese and some basic physical-chemical parameters. Samples of milk, and of cheese at the end of ripening (60 days), were collected from nine Alpine dairy farms. Content of dry matter, protein, fat and ash, as well as pH and water activity (Aw) were evaluated. The microbiological parameters considered were: coagulase-positive Staphylococci, Enterobacteriaceae, Salmonella spp and Listeria monocytogenes. The final mean values of pH and Aw for cheeses were 5.39 and 0.963, respectively. Salmonella spp was found neither in milk nor in cheese. Listeria monocytogenes was found in one sample of milk. Enterobacteriaceae varied between <10 and 3.26x10^4 CFU/ml in milk and between <10 and 8.1 x 10^4 CFU/gr in cheese. Coagulase-positive Staphylococci varied from <100 to 3.1 x 10^4 CFU/ml for milk. Three ripened cheeses from different producers showed counts higher than those permitted by the European Regulations. The rise in Enterobacteriaceae could be due to environmental contamination, because some cheese factories, located above 1400 m a.s.l., are used only during the summer period, when sufficient hygiene standards could be difficult to obtain.