Microbiological quality of bottled water in Saudi Arabia

The microbiological quality of sixty six bottled water samples representing 14 locally produced and six imported brands in Saudi Arabia have been examined for total coliform and heterotrophic plate count using membrane filtration method. Three local brands of large capacity (10-20 liters) were also used to observe the storage effect for 75 days. No coliform was detected in any of the samples. Very low plate counts (0-1/ml) were found in small bottles (0.5 - 1.5 liters capacity) whereas comparatively high plate counts (3-276/ml) were found in large bottles. It was also observed that storing the large bottles for certain time causes an increase in bacterial count.