Journal of Advances in Microbiology

Artificial sweeteners such as saccharin were used in place of sugar in the production of sobo drink. Sobo (Hibiscus sabdariffa) is a local drink produced by boiling the Sobo (Hibiscus sabdariffa), sieving out the calyces and addition of artificial sweetener such as saccharin Upon ingestion of the sobo drink, saccharin goes through the human digestive system where it is neither absorbed nor metabolised; it is excreted unmodified via the kidney. Samples were collected from Kasuwar Daji market in sokoto. The drinks were stored at room temperature and monitored for 21 days. The aim of this study is to evaluate the fate of saccharin during storage of sobo drink using microbial load and spectrophotometer. Bacteria load and type was determined using standard bacteriological analysis. The concentration of saccharin in the spoilt sobo drink was determined using spectrophotometer. GC-MS analysis was used for the identification and quantification of volatile compounds. The degradation process was found to mostly occur on the third day and the twelfth day of the storage, the degradation rate was found to be higher in lower concentrations of saccharin and lower in higher concentration of saccharin. The bacteria species isolated from the sobo drink, includes Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus pumilis, Bacillus azotomonas, Micrococcus varians, Aeromonas hydrophila, Enterobacter aeromonas, Lactobacillus acidophilus. This research shown that prolonged storage results in the predominance of common spoilage bacteria and  coliform bacteria  in the sobo drink and were found to be capable of degrading saccharin which results in the formation of 2-sulfano benzamide as the degradation product.