Microbiological characterization of tomato is highly important as this fruit is consumed fresh. The main causes of
contamination are related to hygiene, inadequate farming equipment, the latter may become sources of
contamination, especially by molds and yeasts, also bolstering cross-contamination, which source can be the raw
material, air, dust and even handler agriculture (Ayala-Zavala et al., 2008). Coliforms are organisms related to
undesirable or precarious sanitary conditions. The presence of these microorganisms does not necessarily indicate
fecal contamination, as the majority of coliforms are found in the environment. Contaminations of this kind are
confirmed only by the presence of Escherichia coli (Kaper et al., 2004; Gyles & Fairbrother, 2010). The consumer
must be aware that good product appearance is not a synonym of absence of microbial contamination. Cereja was
the only cultivar studied that was found free of any sort of microorganism contamination, during all the
experiment.