Effect of mild steaming treatment on the inactivation of Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli O157:H7 and their surrogates on black peppercorns

The microbial safety of black peppercorns (Piper nigrum L.) has raised concerns due to increasing numbers of reported foodborne outbreaks and food safety alerts. To avoid quality degradation caused by excessive thermal processing, mild steaming treatments (= 5-log reductions of Salmonella and L. monocytogenes strains at all tested a(w). Among the four surrogate strains, Enterococcus faecium was shown to be the most suitable surrogate in validating mild steaming processes of black peppercorns. Steaming conditions tested led to no color changes on treated black peppercorns (a(w) = 5-log reductions of Salmonella and L. monocytogenes strains at all tested a(w). Among the four surrogate strains, Enterococcus faecium was shown to be the most suitable surrogate in validating mild steaming processes of black peppercorns. Steaming conditions tested led to no color changes on treated black peppercorns (a(w) < 0.80) compared to the original ones. Mild steaming at 75 degrees C has the potential to be applied in the production of dried black peppercorns to lower the microbial contaminants while maintaining the product's visual quality. Additionally, data collected on the wide range of pathogenic strains in the present study regarding their survival on black peppercorns during storage (22 degrees C) and steam treatments demonstrate that Salmonella remained the pathogen of concern for dried food matrices.A