The Journal of

Introduction: Wheat is the most important crops and bread made from in Iranian diet, which contamination of wheat and flour storage in adverse environmental conditions can lead to contamination with toxic fungi particularly aflatoxin producing fungi. The aim of current study was to determine the frequency and type of fungal contaminants in the distributed flours in Yazd bakeries.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 80 bakeries' flour samples and 20 flour samples of flour producer factories were collected. After measuring their moisture, dilutions from 10^-2 to 10^-6 of flour samples were cultivated on Saboraud dextrose agar plates and by enumeration of isolated colonies, their genus and species were identified based on macroscopic and microscopic characteristics. Data was analyzed by SPSS software using descriptive statistics such as average and Chi square test. Differences were considered statistically signifi­cant when P < 0.05.

Results: A total of 2223 fungal colonies from 11 different genus and species were isolated and identified from samples of flour that only 7% showed fungal contaminations more than allowable cut off points. Penicillium, Cladosporium, Fusarium, Aspergillus flavus, and Aspergillus niger were the most prevalent and Alternaria, Vertisillium, Rhizopus and Fouma showed minimum contamination in studied flour samples in present study.

Conclusion: Results of present study compared with other similar studies indicating a fairly favorable situation in terms of fungal contaminations in the distributed flour in Yazd bakeries.