Fig. 1

Bacterial population dynamics of retail milk over 24 h room temperature (RT) incubation. a Bacterial populations in freshly purchased retail milk (without incubation). b Total aerobic bacteria; c Coliforms; dE. coli; populations during the RT incubation within 24 h. A total of 1152 milk samples were analyzed; Raw (n = 288), HTST (n = 432), Vat (n = 144), and UHT (n = 288). Solid and dashed horizontal lines represent the California milk threshold for aerobic bacteria (< 15,000 bacteria/mL) and coliforms (< 10 coliform/mL), respectively. ^★P < 0.05, ^★★P < 0.01, and ^★★★P < 0.001 for comparison with raw milk of the same bacterial type. ^#P < 0.05, ^##P < 0.01, and ^###P < 0.001 for comparison with start point (0 h) within each type of milk