Foodborne disease leads to substantial morbidity and mortality all over the world¹, and is thus considered a severe public health problem². In 2010, there were 56,991 recorded cases of food poisoning illness in England and Wales³. However, it is generally accepted that actual figures may be orders of magnitude higher than those recorded due to significant under-reporting amongst other factors^{2, 4}.

Campylobacter jejuni and Salmonella spp. are the main culprits responsible for a significant proportion of reported cases of foodborne disease in the UK^{2, 5-7}. This is explained by the close association of these species with chicken, a common component of the UK diet. Numerous surveys have been conducted to assess the extent of contamination of raw poultry sold in the UK, and they have revealed that up to 30% is contaminated with salmonellae and up to 90% with campylobacters⁷.

Salmonella spp. and Campylobacter spp. are widely recognized as the most common pathogens isolated in human cases of bacterial gastroenteritis ^{2, 8} although it has been reported that Campylobacter is more often implicated in gastrointestinal infection than Salmonella⁴. Campylobacter is also considered to be the leading bacterial cause of diarrheal disease/infectious intestinal disease (IID) in the developed world⁸. In addition to Salmonella and Campylobacter, it has been reported that Shigella and Shiga toxin and Escherichia coli (STEC) O157 significantly contribute to the incidence of foodborne disease in the United States⁹. Other foodborne pathogens include Staphylococcus aureus, rotavirus and hepatitis A virus¹.

Foodborne outbreaks of Listeria monocytogenes, responsible for septicaemia and meningoencephalitis in the immunocompromised and the elderly, have been reported¹⁰. L. monocytogenes is common in the environment and has caused several cases of hospital-acquired/nosocomial listeriosis, including in neonates, in the UK. Nosocomial outbreaks of Salmonella infection, particulary Salmonella enteritidis, have also been recorded¹¹.

Bacterial contamination in the domestic environment was first comprehensively investigated by Finch et al. in (1978)¹². In this study, samples were isolated from various sites in the kitchen, bathroom, living room, toilet and hall of 21 homes and the bacterial flora therein examined. Several studies followed assessing the levels of microbial contamination in the domestic kitchen and the home environment^{6, 13-16} highlighting the growing significance of the home, and the kitchen in particular, as locations for harbouring pathogens responsible for foodborne disease. Scott et al.’s study in 1982¹⁵ was similar to that of Finch et al.¹² but on a much larger scale, looking at microbial contamination in 251 domestic houses by sampling 60 sites in the bathroom, toilet and kitchen. Speirs et al.¹⁶ presented findings from the investigation of a wider range of sites (76 in total) in 13 domestic kitchens together with focusing on specific sites with potential for cross-contamination in a further 33 kitchens. Josephson et al.⁶ looked at the effectiveness of different cleaning regimes through a two year study that involved the quantification of specific bacterial pathogens and indicator organisms in 10 household kitchens in the United States in the presence, both ‘casual’ and ‘targeted’, and absence of disinfectant cleaner use. Rusin et al.¹⁴ examined fourteen sites in the kitchen and bathroom of 15 households over an extended period of time to determine which of these had the highest levels of contamination with faecal coliform, coliform and heterotrophic plate count (HPC) bacteria. Their study also included an investigation of the effectiveness of various cleaning and disinfection regimes using hypochlorite cleaners. Finally, Haysom¹³ recognised that previous kitchen studies only looked at samples taken from one point in time and decided to investigate the change of microbial load in domestic kitchens over a 24-hour period.

The above studies provide substantial evidence confirming the presence of viable microorganisms across various sites in domestic kitchens. However, the type of organism together with its likelihood of contaminating food very much determine how significant this microbial contamination is in relation to human health¹⁷.

The present study was carried out to provide genetic identification of 2 of the predominant bacterial isolates previously obtained from a shared student kitchen.