Potential application of cumin, pepper and thyme spices on soft cheese quality

White soft cheese is contaminated with pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms during manufacturing and storage. Fortunately, some spices have natural antimicrobial and antioxidant activity that control the safety of milk and milk products (cheese) as it. So, this work aimed to study the antimicrobial effects of cumin, pepper and thyme against Total bacterial , Coliforms , Staphylococcus aureus and yeast & mould count .Also their effects on moisture and fat percent. The results indicated that thyme, pepper and cumin have great significant difference effect (p ≤ 0.05) against total bacterial , Coliforms , Staphylococcus aureus and yeast & mould count during storage period (30 days) than control one. Thyme was more effective than pepper and cumin. The least effective one was cumin. Moreover, moisture percent decreased though storage period at 15th of storage there is significant difference (p ≤ 0.05) between treated and control samples. During 25th days of samples treated with thyme showed significant difference effect (p ≤ 0.05) on moisture content than treated with pepper and cumin. The fat content of white cheese treatments was not significant affected by thyme, pepper and cumin until 10th days of storage then, fat percent increase in treated sample with thyme, paper and cumin, respectively. pH values decreased while the acidity increased, the progress of acidity was faster in treated groups during storage for 30 days. Sensory characters revealed that the highest total scores were given to groups preserved thyme.