Modeling the Transfer of Salmonella Enteritidis during Slicing of Ready‐to‐Eat Turkey Products Treated with Thyme Essential Oil

Abstract

The increased demand for low-sodium ready-to-eat (RTE) meat products highlights the need for new strategies to ensure food safety. The application of essential oils (EOs) as natural antimicrobials in the meat industry has been suggested to prevent or control cross-contamination during meat processing operations. This work aims to quantify and model the transfer of Salmonella Enteritidis during the slicing procedure of RTE turkey products treated with thyme essential oil (TEO) at a concentration of 0.1% (v/w). Two products were subjected to the slicing procedure with slicer blades inoculated with S. Enteritidis at 10 cfu/mL. The Weibull and modified Weibull predictive models were fitted to the transfer data. Twenty slices were sampled and showed positive with bacteria, indicating cross-contamination. The number of cells transferred per slice decreased logarithmically during the assays. The transfer models, based on the Weibull model, were suitable to describe the bacterial transfer trend on slices in most cases. TEO treatment reduced the transfer of Salmonella on a preservative free RTE turkey product. The predictive models obtained in this study can help food-quality staff and managers on the design and assessment of processes to guard RTE turkey products against Salmonella. This work supports the addition of EOs to reduce microbial risk in RTE meat products.

Modeling Salmonella ( S . Typhimurium ATCC14028, ATCC 13311, S . Typhi ATCC 19430, and S. enterica ) and Listeria ( L. monocytogenes Scott A, ATCC 7644, and CDBB‐B‐1426) cocktails’ survival under the effects of pH, protein, and essential oil concentration

“…According to Zhang et al (2012), pH of cured and uncured turkey deli meats is 6.3 at midpoint shelf life. Possas, Posada‐Izquierdo, Pérez‐Rodríguez, and García‐Gimeno (2016) quantified the transfer of Salmonella Enteritidis from blades to product during the slicing of RTE turkey products; blades were inoculated with 10 8 CFU/ml and the number of cells present in the product decreased logarithmically with each slice. The highest level quantified during their experiment was measured on the first five slices and correspond to 4.49 ± 0.19 log CFU/cm 2 .…”

Modeling Transfer of Vibrio Parahaemolyticus During Peeling of Raw Shrimp

“…In the study of Possas et al. (), Weibull and modified Weibull predictive models were fitted to the transfer data to describe the bacterial transfer trend on slices and the modified Weibull model showed better goodness‐of‐fit indexes ( R 2 = 0.81 and RMSE = 0.27) than the Weibull model ( R 2 = 0.75 and RMSE = 0.31). Pérez‐Rodríguez et al.…”

“…Empirical models, including log‐linear, Weibull, power, and exponential models, have been used in describing and predicting the bacterial transfer during the successive contacting process, such as slicing process (Aarnisalo, Sheen, Raaska, & Tamplin, ; Pérez‐Rodríguez et al., ; Possas et al., ; Sheen & Hwang, ). Among these models, the exponential model was most popular in describing bacterial transfer.…”

“…Bacterial TRs are usually quantified as the percentage of cells transferred from the donor surface to the recipient surface (Chen et al., ; Jensen et al., ; Montville et al., ; Pérez‐Rodríguez et al., , ). Empirical models, including log‐linear, Weibull, power, and exponential models, have been used in describing and predicting the bacterial transfer during the successive contacting processes, such as the slicing process (Pérez‐Rodríguez et al., ; Possas, Posada‐Izquierdo, Pérez‐Rodríguez, & García‐Gimeno, ; Sheen & Hwang, ).…”