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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Athens, Georgia » U.S. National Poultry Research Center » Quality and Safety Assessment Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #329501
Research Project: Assessment and Improvement of Poultry Meat, Egg, and Feed Quality

Location: Quality and Safety Assessment Research Unit

Title: Inactivation of spoilage bacteria in package by dielectric barrier discharge atmospheric cold plasma - treatment time effects

Author
item Zhuang, Hong
item WANG, JIAMEI - Hainan University
item ZHANG, JIANHAO - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)

Submitted to: Food and Bioprocess Technology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/11/2016
Publication Date: 5/21/2016
Citation: Zhuang, H., Wang, J., Zhang, J. 2016. Inactivation of spoilage bacteria in package by dielectric barrier discharge atmospheric cold plasma - treatment time effects. Food and Bioprocess Technology. ISSN 1935-5130 Food Bioprocess Technol. doi: 10.1007/s11947-016-1746-6.

Interpretive Summary: It is estimated that more than 144 million pounds of fresh poultry meat products are lost as a result of microbiological spoilage each year. Atmospheric cold plasma (ACP) is a novel non-thermal decontamination method that provides an alternative to the traditional antimicrobial technologies for food. The ultimate objective of our study was to develop the ACP treatment for reducing microbiological spoilage of fresh poultry meat using chicken breast meat as a model. In this study, we investigated effects of ACP treatment time on spoilage bacteria Pseudomonas fluorescens and Macrococcus caseolyticus on chicken carcasses that were stored at refrigerated temperature. Our results show that ACP treatment can significantly reduce the populations of both bacteria and increasing treatment time results in reducing bacterial populations regardless of microbial species. Pseudomonas fluorescens, a most well known spoilage bacterium on fresh poultry meat stored at refrigerated temperature, is more sensitive to the ACP treatment than Macrococcus caseolyticus. This study suggests the ACP technology may be used to reduce microbiological spoilage of fresh poultry meat and increasing the ACP treatment time can increase antimicrobial efficacy of ACP treatment.

Technical Abstract: The objective was to investigate the effect of treatment time of dielectric barrier discharge atmospheric cold plasma (DBD-ACP) on inactivation of spoilage bacteria, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Macrococcus caseolyticus. P. fluorescens and M. caseolyticus were isolated from spoiled chicken carcasses and suspended in liquid media in packages before the samples were treated with DBD-ACP at 55 kV for different times. Ozone concentrations in package headspace and pH changes in bacterial suspensions were measured to assess plasma formation and antimicrobial activity inside packages. Colony formation) was used to indicate the inactivation efficacy. Ozone concentrations reached 1000 ppm after a 3 min treatment. pH dropped by more than 0.25 units in bacterial suspensions immediately after 6 min treatments and 0.70 units after 6 min treatment and 24 h storage at 4C. Populations of both bacteria significantly reduced as the DBD-ACP treatment time increased. The treatment for less than 90 s resulted in more than 1 log reductions in both bacteria, which were similar to each other. However, treatments for additional 90 s reduced P. fluorescens and M. caseolyticus populations by more than 4 and 2.5 log cycles, respectively. The difference in bacterial kills between the two types of bacteria extended to 360 s treatments. Our results demonstrate that treatment times significantly affect the inactivation of spoilage bacteria by DBD-ACP system. After the treatment times are extended for more than 90 s, the in-package DBD-ACP treatment has more effects on Gram-negative spoilage bacteria P. fluorescens than Gram-positive spoilage bacteria M. caseolyticus.