The microbiological efficacy of decontamination methodologies for fresh produce: A review

Microbial Decontamination of Fresh Produce (Strawberry) Using Washing Solutions

“…Industrial decontamination methods include synthetic chemicals and physical techniques such as chlorine, ozone, electrolyzed water, bromine, tri-sodium phosphate, iodine, irradiation, refrigeration, pulsed light, electrostatic sprays, and cold plasma (Goodburn & Wallace, 2013). However, efficacy of decontamination is varied and none of these methods are able to ensure elimination of pathogens completely (Zivile, Irina, Kristina, Egle, & Pranas, 2012).…”

“…It was reported that lemon juice and vinegars showed inhibitory activities against C. perfringens spore germination and outgrowth on reduced salt (Li et al, 2012). Washing time and techniques are important considerations during decontamination of fresh produce (Goodburn & Wallace, 2013). Nastou et al (2012) reported that 2% (v/v) acetic acid was shown to have some antimicrobial effect in most of the cases with immersion time of 5 or 10 min for fresh produce.…”

The effect of thermal, chlorine and ozone treatments on survival of Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. in açai berries

“…Regarding the berries contaminated with E. coli and heat treated at 90 °C, the different sources of water used for cooling the berries showed no significant difference in reducing the initial population (Figure 4). E. coli load reductions observed in the combined treatments were lower than those found when the blanching at 90 °C was applied with distilled water (Table 2).In one study, combining technologies (hurdle method) was found to improve log reduction [23], while in another the treatments had antagonistic effects and consequently a hurdle effect was not observed [12]. In our study, the combination of blanching at 90 °C with subsequent cooling with chlorinated water resulted in synergistic effect for the logarithmic reduction of Salmonella spp., because the values were higher than those found when the berries were blanched and cooled with distilled water.…”

“…The variety of results from these and other published studies of the effectiveness of chlorination for vegetable and fruit sanitizing is related to factors such as chlorine concentration applied, pH and immersion time. Some authors have found typical microbial reductions of < 2 log [23] and depending on the test microorganism combined with these factors, reductions can be achieved of < 1 to 3.15 log CFU.g -1 [24]. The reduced effectiveness in lowering the number of microbial cells observed in trials involving thermal and non-thermal treatments applied to açai berries may be due to microbial cell infiltration into deeper fruit layers.…”

“…and could even be considered to have an antagonistic effect because the values were below the average for blanching to 90 °C with cooling in distilled water. The indiscriminate action of ozone on bacteria and organic matter can explain the reduced effectiveness of ozone treatments in both assays compared to simple washing with water, because cuts on fruit surface promote the lixiviation of organic matter, which can react with ozone before acting on the bacteria adhered on the fruit surface [23]. Other authors considered that aqueous ozone when applied in açai fruit did not affect the sensory quality of its beverage enough to be discriminated by consumers [29].…”