Spices and natural flavors are basic elements that go into food, especially meat and poultry products. In countries with hot and humid climate, contamination of spices and other food additives with moulds especially aflatoxogenic species is commonly encountered. There are great potential risks on human health via consumption of such spices or foods which contain these spices. Hence, creating awareness among consumers regarding aflatoxins is of great importance for food safety. From this point of view, this investigation was designed to evaluate the quality of 14 kinds of spices and 6 meat products. A total of 200 samples of food additives (Black pepper, Cumin, Coriander, Turmeric, Chili powder, Ginger, Garlic powder, Paprika, Curry, Cinnamon, Thyme, Clove, Cardamom and Onion powder) and meat products (Basterma, Beef burger, Frankfurter, Hot dog, Kofta and Luncheon) representing 10 each were collected from local markets at Cairo and Giza Governorates. All samples were analyzed for moulds count, predominant mould genera especially aflatoxins producing species and total aflatoxins level. All examined spices and meat products showed positive result for moulds with highest contamination percentage (100%) in black pepper, cumin, coriander and turmeric, while in meat products kofta and Hot dog showed contamination percentages of 80 & 70%, respectively. The lowest percentage of contamination (40%) was in clove and Luncheon. Moulds load in spices ranged from 2.47 ± 1.09 in clove to 3.61 ± 1.67 in chili powder log10 CFU/g, whereas in meat products it was 3.53 ± 2.12 in frankfurter and 3.95 ± 2.63 in beefburger. Aspergillus and Penicillium species were generally the most predominant species recovered from the examined samples, followed by Mucor Cladosporium and Altrnaria species. Further characterization of Aspergillus species proved that et el A. niger was the most prevalent followed by A. flavus, A. ochraceus, A. candidus and A. gluacus. Almost fifteen percent (14.9%) of the isolated A. flavus isolates were aflatoxogenic. The total aflatoxin residues were maximum in chili powder (40.94 ± 9.28 ug/kg) for spices and in hot dog
(8.23 ± 1.52 ug/kg) for meat products. In consistence with ELISA findings, the molecular study on genomic DNA using PCR technique confirmed presence of Aspergillus species in isolated samples.