Abstract
This study determined Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium survival on tomato skins as a function of sanitization treatment, under three differing contamination and sanitization scenarios. Sanitizing treatments consisted of the plant-derived antimicrobial (PDA) geraniol (0.5 wt.%) emulsified in the polymeric surfactant Pluronic F-127 (GNP), 0.5 wt.% unencapsulated geraniol (UG), 200 mg/L hypochlorous acid at pH 7.0 (HOCl), and a sterile distilled water wash (CON). Experimental contamination and sanitization scenarios tested were: (1) pathogen inoculation preceded by treatment; (2) the pathogen was inoculated onto samples twice with a sanitizing treatment applied in between inoculations; and (3) pathogen inoculation followed by sanitizing treatment. Reductions in counts of surviving pathogens were dependent on the sanitizing treatment, the storage period, or the interaction of these independent/main effects. GNP treatment yielded the greatest reductions in pathogen counts on tomato skins; pathogen survivor counts following GNP treatment were consistently statistically lower than those achieved by HOCl or UG treatments (p < 0.05). GNP treatment provided greatest pathogen reduction under differing conditions of pre- and/or post-harvest cross-contamination, and reduced hygiene-indicating microbes the most of all treatments on non-inoculated samples. Encapsulated geraniol can reduce the risk of pathogen transmission on tomato fruit, reducing food safety hazard risks for tomato consumers.
Highlights
After reviving and verifying Rif+ for each organism, a cocktail of both organisms for inoculation onto tomato skin samples was prepared using centrifugation conditions reported in Perez-Lewis et al [9], producing an inoculum prepared to a target of
Contamination/sanitization scenarios were conducted in identical fashion as we recently described for similar experiments on muskmelons [9]
For tomato samples subjected to contamination prior to sanitization, two trends are evident from survivor count data
Summary
The U.S Department of Agriculture reports that outbreaks of human foodborne microbial disease resulting from consuming pathogen-contaminated tomatoes have declined in frequency since 2001, but have been a consistent annual occurrence in the. Gurtler et al [2] reviewed multiple disease outbreaks involving transmission of Salmonella serovars via tomatoes resulting in hundreds of disease cases. From August to October 2019, an outbreak of salmonellosis in Sweden occurred from imported contaminated tomatoes yielding 82 confirmed cases of disease [3]. These and other outbreaks continue to Microorganisms 2022, 10, 448.
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