Inhibition of Clostridium perfringens Growth by Potassium Lactate during an Extended Cooling of Cooked Uncured Ground Turkey Breasts

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service compliance guideline known as Appendix B specifies chilling time and temperature limits for cured and uncured meat products to inhibit growth of spore-forming bacteria, particularly Clostridium perfringens. Sodium lactate and potassium lactate inhibit toxigenic growth of Clostridium botulinum, and inhibition of C. perfringens has been reported. In this study, a cocktail of spores of three C. perfringens strains (ATCC 13124, ATCC 12915, and ATCC 12916) were inoculated into 100-g samples of ground skinless, boneless turkey breast formulated to represent deli-style turkey breast. Three treatment groups were supplemented with 0 (control), 1, or 2% potassium lactate (pure basis), cooked to 71 °C, and assayed for C. perfringens growth during 10 or 12 h of linear cooling to 4 °C. In control samples, populations of C. perfringens increased 3.8 to 4.7 log CFU/g during the two chilling protocols. The 1% potassium lactate treatment supported only a 2.5- to 2.7-log increase, and the 2% potassium lactate treatment limited growth to a 0.56- to 0.70-log increase. When compared with the control, 2% potassium lactate retarded growth by 2.65 and 4.21 log CFU/g for the 10- and 12-h cooling protocols, respectively. These results confirm that the addition of 2% potassium lactate inhibits growth of C. perfringens and that potassium lactate can be used as an alternative to sodium nitrite for safe extended cooling of uncured meats.

Evaluating the Performance of a New Model for Predicting the Growth of Clostridium perfringens in Cooked, Uncured Meat and Poultry Products under Isothermal, Heating, and Dynamically Cooling Conditions

“…The cooling data contain both single‐ and dual‐rate cooling profiles. For most single‐rate cooling profiles, the temperature decreases exponentially from 54.4 to 7.2 °C or 4.4 °C in 6.5, 9, 12, 15, 18, and 21 h (Thippareddi and others ; Zaika ; Juneja and Thippareddi , ; Smith and others ; Smith and Schaffner ; Sánchez‐Plata and others ; Juneja and others , ; Olds and others ; Juneja and Friedman ; Velugoti and others ; Singh and others ; Li and others ; Decker and others ; Juneja and others ; Kennedy and others ; Redondo‐Solano and others ; King and others ). The single‐rate cooling profiles also include 2 linear cooling profiles from 54.4 to 7.2 °C (King and others ) and 5 customized cooling profiles (Olds and others ; Decker and others ).…”

Inactivation Strategies for Clostridium perfringens Spores and Vegetative Cells

“…The addition of a 1.5% or higher concentrations of sodium lactate in marinated sous-vide-cooked chicken breast products led to the delay in the germination and outgrowth of spores of enterotoxigenic C. perfringens during storage at 19 and 25°C (43). Potassium lactate at 2% effectively restricted growth of a spore cocktail from 3 different C. perfringens strains during extended cooling of cooked uncured ground turkey breasts (42). However, calcium lactate was more effective than sodium lactate and potassium lactate in controlling germination and outgrowth a of spore cocktail from 3 C. perfringens strains in injected pork during a deviated chilling regimen (41).…”

“…Lactic acid and its derivatives of different salts have been reported to inhibit the germination and outgrowth of C. perfringens spores in different meat products, including injected turkey, injected pork, sous-vide chicken products, and tajik sambusa, under various abusive conditions (41)(42)(43)(44)(45). The lactate group represents a group of primary compounds responsible for the inhibition of germination and outgrowth of spores of Clostridium spp.…”

“…The lactate group represents a group of primary compounds responsible for the inhibition of germination and outgrowth of spores of Clostridium spp. (41) and could be utilized as an alternative to nitrite to warrant product safety during extended cooling of uncured meats (42). The addition of a 1.5% or higher concentrations of sodium lactate in marinated sous-vide-cooked chicken breast products led to the delay in the germination and outgrowth of spores of enterotoxigenic C. perfringens during storage at 19 and 25°C (43).…”

Impact of Clean-Label Antimicrobials and Nitrite Derived from Natural Sources on the Outgrowth of Clostridium perfringens during Cooling of Deli-Style Turkey Breast

“…Another potential approach to control C. perfringens germination and outgrowth is to include antimicrobials, primarily weak organic acids, such as calcium, sodium, and potassium salts of lactate, diacetate, and citrate, in product formulations (15,23,24,33). Several naturally derived compounds with antimicrobial properties can be isolated from plant extracts, essential oils, animal-produced proteins, or bacterial peptides, to name a few (19).…”