Lighvan is considered the most popular Iranian raw milk cheese made from raw ewe’s milk or a mixture of ewe’s and goat’s milk following ancient cheesemaking technologies without addition of starter. This study aimed to compare the microbiological quality and safety of fresh (curd and day 30) as well as ripened (day 90) cheese as a tool to verifying possible associations between microbial populations, and the detection of the dominant lactic acid bacteria (LAB) with potential antagonistic activity against foodborne pathogens in ripened cheese. Fresh and ripened cheese samples were collected and submitted for the analysis of LAB, mesophilic count, total coliforms, molds & yeasts and coagulase-positive Staphylococcus (CPS). The samples presented high counts of mesophilic aerobes, total coliforms, and LAB, and also high and significant correlation indices between these populations both in fresh and ripened cheeses but with specific trend in each. In total, 95 isolates were identified from the counting plates of M17 (21 isolates), MRS (39 isolates) and KKA (35 isolates). The highest number belonged to Enterococcus faecium (22.44%), Lactococcus lactis ssp. lactis (20.4%), Lactobacillus plantarum (18.36%) and Enterococcus faecalis (14.28%). Some particular LAB, such as Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium, have been claimed to have the ability of bacteriocin production. Further investigation is necessary to prove the antimicrobial potential of the autochthonous microbiota originated from raw milk and also from other sources such as processing and storage environment of Lighvan cheese.

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