Histamine formation by enterococci in goat cheese

Cheeses were made of heat-treated goat milk inoculated with large numbers of a histamine-producing strain of Streptococcus faecium or a non-histamine-producing strain of S. faecalis. Every second week during ripening (91 days) the cheeses were sampled for histamine analyses and bacteriological analyses. The numbers of enterococci remained high throughout the whole period of investigation and the maximum amount of histamine detected was 8.2 micrograms/g in one of the cheeses. The enterococci seem to have no relevance from a histamine intoxication point of view in cheeses of this kind.