Occurrence of histamine and histamine-forming bacteria in kimchi products in Taiwan

Twenty kimchi products sold in supermarkets and 17 products sold in retail markets were purchased from southern Taiwan and tested to determine the occurrence of histamine and histamine-forming bacteria. The levels of pH and salt content in all samples ranged from 3.6 to 5.1 and 1.5–16.0%, respectively. The supermarket kimchi products had 1–7.2 log CFU/g of APC and <3–600 MPN/g of total coliform (TC), and the retail market kimchi products had 4–8.03 log CFU/g of APC and <3 to >2400 MPN/g of TC. Only one of the retail market kimchi products contained 20 MPN/g Escherichia coli. Although, supermarket kimchi products had an average histamine content of 49.8 mg/100 g, 15 of them had histamine content greater than 5 mg/100 g, the allowable level set by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for scombroid fish and/or product. In contrast, only eight retail market kimchi products had histamine levels greater than 5 mg/100 g. Among the supermarket samples, three contained histamine at 50.2, 273 and 535 mg/100 g, that are more than the 50 mg/100 g hazard action level. Four histamine-producing bacteria capable of producing 13.6–43.1 ppm of histamine in MRS broth supplemented with 0.25% l-histidine were identified as Lactobacillus para. paracasei (one strain), Lb. brevis (one strain), and Brevibacillus brevis (two strains). To our knowledge, this is the first report to demonstrate the occurrence of high contents of histamine and histamine-forming bacteria in kimchi products.