Location: Characterization and Interventions for Foodborne Pathogens
Project Number: 8072-41420-025-001-R
Project Type: Reimbursable Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Oct 1, 2020
End Date: Aug 31, 2023
Objective:
Determine the efficacy of cold plasma, monochromatic blue light, pulsed light, gaseous chlorine dioxide, and ozone against foodborne pathogens including bacteria, viruses, and parasites high-risk foods and the interactions among the treatments, environmental conditions, and product characteristics.
One of the most critical emerging concerns in the area of food safety is the increasing incidence of pathogen contamination on low-moisture foods, and the lack of effective intervention technologies that can make these foods safer. This project will determine the efficacy of cold plasma, monochromatic blue light, pulsed light, gaseous chlorine dioxide, and ozone on these low-moisture, high-risk foods. It will quantify the inactivations of foodborne pathogens including bacteria, viruses, and parasites, and will model the interactions among the treatments, taking into account environmental conditions and product characteristics.
Approach:
The research to be conducted in this project is an extension to, and culmination of, work conducted over five years in a previous NIFA project. This final phase of the research will complete the microbial inactivation response data sets for the various interventions described above. It will also establish the scale-up potential of the intervention technologies, singly and in combinations, along with pre-commercial implementation models that describe the impact of processing conditions.