Abstract
A total of seven cheese samples including imported and local cheese, were collected from different supermarkets in Erbil city. A study was conducted to determine the numbers and types of bacteria found in these cheeses samples. Results showed that all samples were contaminated with bacteria, and thenumber of bacteria in all samples were more than 2000 CFU/gm of cheese, the surface of the plates were covered with the colonies. Identification results by VITCK 2 appeared that sample No. 1 which belong to local Kurdish chess, contained Sphingobactrium spiritivorum bacteria, sample No. 5 which belong to imported Kiri cheese contained Klebsiella pneumonia, while sample No. 6 belong to imported Kraft cheese contained Staphylococcus lentus, and in sample No. 7 which is one of the imported chess(Baqara zahika) was contained bacteria belong to species Kocurin kristinae.To be sure about contamination of cheese by pathogenic bacteria other methods required such as PCR technique, and use appropriate sterilization methods in the case of local cheese.