Food Safety and Regulatory Measures

Biography

Biography: Catherine Bowe

Abstract

Consumption of fresh produce has been associated with several food scares, such as recent deadly outbreaks of Listeriosis and E. coli. Aside from the severe consequences for public health, foodborne outbreaks also have a significant economic impact, particularly for the country of origin of the contaminated agricultural produce. It is of paramount importance to develop and apply decontamination technologies to assure product safety and maintain consumer trust in fresh produce. Exposure of fresh produce to high temperatures for a short time over a number of cycles can be used to decontaminate surfaces. One key advantage of cyclic heating is that heat dissipation is confined within a few millimeters of the surface; avoiding significant deterioration of the product’s fresh like appearance. The effectiveness of cyclic heating decontamination on surfaces with different roughness was investigated. Heating was practiced by immersion in water at 95°C for 8 s in multiple cycles. Melon flesh and polypropylene were used as model surfaces of different roughness and hydrophobicity. Surfaces were inoculated with vegetative cells of B. subtilis prior to cyclic heating and viability assessment was conducted using both plating and bacterial flow cytometry. Our results revealed a significant impact from surface roughness on the effectiveness of decontamination. Greater than 5 log reduction was accomplished on polypropylene surfaces within the first 3 cycles whereas less than 4 log reduction was possible for high surface roughness. Effectiveness of cyclic heating decontamination compares favorably to conventional decontamination methods where antimicrobial agents such as chlorine, chlorine dioxide and ozone are used.