Impact of Electrolyzed Water on the Microbial Spoilage Profile of Piedmontese Steak Tartare

Abstract

Treatment with EW prior to grinding did not result in an effective intervention to prolong the shelf life of Piedmontese steak tartare. Our RNA-based approach clearly highlighted a microbiota that changed markedly between production runs but little during the first shelf life stages. Under these conditions, an early metataxonomic profiling might provide the best prediction of the microbiological fate of each batch of the product.

Metataxonomic signature of beef burger perishability depends on the meat origin prior grinding

“…Metataxonomic has already proved capable to characterize and clearly distinguish ground beef microbiota among different production runs (Botta et al, 2021;Sade, Penttinen, Björkroth, & Hultman, 2017). Deeping the potentiality of this culture-independent analysis, here the possibility to microbiologically discriminate between beef burger batches manufactured in the same processing run but from different pre-grinding origin has been explored.…”

“…Moreover, Lactococcus piscium is the main meat spoilage LAB in low oxygen conditions in which represents an endpoint indicator of shelf-life, while in presence of oxygen the Leuconostoc gelidum is favoured by its heme-dependent respiration capability (Botta et al, 2021;Jääskeläinen et al, 2016;Rahkila, Nieminen, Johansson, Säde, & Björkroth, 2012). Different factors from the gaseous composition have therefore alternatively boosted the development of these two species two vacuum packaged batches; for instance the presence of more or less mutualistic species in the original batch-autochthonous microbiota.…”

“…Conversely, little is known on yeasts and molds involvement in the spoilage of chilled packaged meat during shelf-life (Yang, Che, Qi, Liang, & Song, 2017), while in dry cold-aged beef the mycobiota is known to alternatively play a spoilage and protechnological role in relation to the species developed on the crust (Mikami et al, 2021;Oh, Lee, Lee, In this context, meat industries are constantly seeking for preventative techniques able to maximize the shelf-life of ground beef products by reducing or limiting their initial contamination levels. Different possible strategies have been proposed to accomplish this request: boosting the in-house sanitizing methods with environmental ozone treatments (Botta et al, 2020), prior-grinding decontamination of meat cuts with electrolyzed water (Botta et al, 2021(Botta et al, , 2018, and the use of biopreservatives during shelflife (Ferrocino, Greppi, Lastoria, Rantsiou, & Ercolini, 2016;Grispoldi, Karama, Sechi, Iulieto, & Cenci-Goga, 2020). It was however noticed that any preventative technique can be more or less effective in relation to the initial microbiota composition of the treated product, which varies between production runs (Botta et al, 2021;Ferrocino et al, 2016).…”

“…Different possible strategies have been proposed to accomplish this request: boosting the in-house sanitizing methods with environmental ozone treatments (Botta et al, 2020), prior-grinding decontamination of meat cuts with electrolyzed water (Botta et al, 2021(Botta et al, , 2018, and the use of biopreservatives during shelflife (Ferrocino, Greppi, Lastoria, Rantsiou, & Ercolini, 2016;Grispoldi, Karama, Sechi, Iulieto, & Cenci-Goga, 2020). It was however noticed that any preventative technique can be more or less effective in relation to the initial microbiota composition of the treated product, which varies between production runs (Botta et al, 2021;Ferrocino et al, 2016). Characterization of beef microbiota from the early productive phases is therefore important to define its shelf-life the most suitable preventative strategy.…”

Driving forces shaping the microbial ecology in meat packing plants

“…4 We used the sequencing data for samples collected from various meat plant environmental surfaces after cleaning and/or sanitation to identify persistent bacteria. A total of 447 samples collected from environmental surfaces such as conveyor belt, chopping board, equipment surfaces and other surfaces at eight meat processing plants were included (Kang et al, 2019(Kang et al, , 2020Botta et al, 2020;Cobo-Díaz et al, 2021;Cherifi et al, 2022;Yang et al, 2023b; Table 1; Supplementary Table S3). These plants were, respectively, located in geographical regions including Canada (Cherifi et al, 2022;Yang et al, 2023b), Italy (Botta et al, 2020), Spain (Cobo-Díaz et al, 2021), and Australia (Kang et al, 2019(Kang et al, , 2020.…”