“…The non-pathogenic L. innocua has a high phenotypic similarity to L. monocytogenes and is often used as a substitute organism when studying L. monocytogenes. Some strains of L. innocua have been found to be more heat resistant than L. monocytogenes (Lorentzen, Ytterstad, Olsen, & Skjerdal, 2010). However, both species share ecological niches (Hudecova, Buchtova, & Steinhauserova, 2010), show no differences in growth patterns (McLaughlin, Casey, Cotter, Gahan, & Hill, 2011), or no differences in response to the use of MA packaging (Hugas, Pagés, Garriga, & Monfort, 1998), thus making L. innocua a suitable, yet more conservative, surrogate for studying effect of processing on L. monocytogenes.…”