EFFECT OF ABUSIVE STORAGE CONDITIONS ON THE SUBSEQUENT INACTIVATION OF SALMONELLA ON THE SURFACES OF BLACK PEPPERCORNS BY ATMOSPHERE PRESSURE PLASMA

Outbreaks of salmonellosis associated with low moisture foods have raised public concerns. Meanwhile, fulfillment of consumers’ demand for safety and wish quality on the fresh products has increased the interest of the food industry to adopt innovative processes for food decontamination and preservation. The FDA Food Code (2005) requires a 5-log bacterial reduction for a product to be labeled pasteurized. Compared to thermal processing, some emerging technologies rely on physical and chemical processes, such as high hydrostatic pressure, ionizing radiation, ultra-sound, pulsed electric fields, ultraviolet radiation and atmosphere pressure plasma (APP) have potential to decontaminate microorganisms at ambient temperature or sub-lethal temperature. APP of these treatments is one of the more desirable microbial inactivation technologies. The purpose of this research was to study the effect of abusive storage conditions on the subsequent inactivation of Salmonella on the surfaces of black peppercorns by APP. This was achieved by investigating the survival of Salmonella cocktails: Oranienburg, Tennessee, Anatum and Enteritidis under storage condition of 25°C, 33% RH; 25°C, 97% RH; and, 37°C, 33% RH for 10 days and additionally at 25°C, 33% RH for 1 and 30 days. Results showed that Salmonella populations decreased significantly (p0.05) with respect to the prior storage temperature and RH as well as storage time. The storage condition did not significantly (p>0.05) impacted the microbial inactivation by APP. xi xii Based on the previous work, the equipment was adding moisture to investigate the effect of the destruction of Salmonella cocktails that had been previously stored under the conditions of 25°C, 33% RH by APP with the second gas Air. The results showed that approximately a 2.5 to 3.5 log reduction in population was achieved after 60 to 80 s treatment. The reason might be that the moisture consumed energy to split H2O molecules into H2, O2 & O3 while plasma generated. These findings help advance our understanding of APP has the potential to decontaminate Salmonella on the surfaces of black peppercorns.M.S. in Food Safety and Technology, May 201