A Meta-Analysis on the Antimicrobial Effectiveness of Ozonated Water Treatments for Fresh Produce Washing—Effect of Ozonation Methods

Abstract

Due to the lack of a pathogen-killing process, foodborne outbreaks from contaminated fresh produce have been increasing worldwide. Hence, it is increasingly recognized that the washing step with sanitizers is important to control microbial contamination. Ozonated water is suggested as a substitute for chlorine-based sanitizers, addressing concerns about the effectiveness and environmental impact of chlorine-based sanitizers. However, using ozone as a sanitizer in the fresh produce washing process is still challenging because of its unstable and inconsistent antimicrobial effectiveness under various testing conditions. A meta-analysis was focused on the comparison of antimicrobial effectiveness between different ozonation methods commonly adopted in laboratory settings, including stationary pre-ozonated water, agitated pre-ozonated water, and sparging. The meta-analysis showed that the sparging method results in the highest microbial log reduction compared to other methods. We further developed meta-regression models based on three ozonation methods to identify key processing variables influencing the antimicrobial effectiveness of ozonated water. Attempts were made to link key processing variables to ozone stability and the mass transport phenomena involved in the washing process. This research will contribute to designing and developing a washing process to increase fresh produce safety by identifying key factors in each ozonation method and facilitate interlaboratory comparison studies.