Low water activity in the product coupled with antibacterial nature of some of the chemical compounds released in various degradation reactions may have caused rapid destruction of microbial cells during storage [31].
As the rate of chemical reactions is slow at lower temperatures of storage, the decline in microbial number was found to be slow.
A decrease in microbial counts from initial numbers of 4.1×103 to 2.2×103 was also reported [32] in SMP after storage for 6 months at 30 °C.