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ARS Home » Plains Area » Clay Center, Nebraska » U.S. Meat Animal Research Center » Meat Safety and Quality » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #360780
Research Project: Mitigation Approaches for Foodborne Pathogens in Cattle and Swine for Use During Production and Processing

Location: Meat Safety and Quality

Title: A novel aqueous ozone treatment as a spray chill intervention against Escherichia coli O157:H7 on surfaces of fresh beef

Author
item Kalchayanand, Norasak - Nor
item WORLIE, DREW - Tetraclean/cleancore Technologies Llc
item Wheeler, Tommy

Submitted to: Journal of Food Protection
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/10/2019
Publication Date: 11/1/2019
Citation: Kalchayanand, N., Worlie, D., Wheeler, T. 2019. A novel aqueous ozone treatment as a spray chill intervention against Escherichia coli O157:H7 on surfaces of fresh beef. Journal of Food Protection. 82(11):1874-1878. https://doi.org/10.4315/0362-028X.JFP-19-093.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4315/0362-028X.JFP-19-093

Interpretive Summary: Ozone is a naturally occurring water-soluble gas that acts as a strong oxidizer and has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a sanitizer for food-contact surfaces and for direct application on food products. Ozone is an effective germicide, and auto-decomposes rapidly to produce oxygen, and thus it leaves no residue in food. A new nanobubble technology that creates high concentration and stability of aqueous ozone was evaluated as a spray treatment for its effect on pathogenic E. coli on surfaces of fresh beef during chilling. The results indicate that the aqueous ozone spray treatment was effective in reducing pathogenic E. coli on fresh beef and may provide meat processors an additional technology to improve the safety of beef products.

Technical Abstract: This experiment determined the efficacy of using a novel aqueous ozone treatment as a spray chill intervention to reduce Escherichia coli O157:H7 on surfaces of fresh beef compared to traditional water spray chill. Cutaneous trunci muscles were obtained from a local beef cattle processing plant. Muscles were divided into sixteen 25-cm*2* sections and each section was individually inoculated with E. coli O157:H7 to the final concentration of approximately 10*5* CFU/cm*2*. Muscle sections were collected and tested before and after simulated spray chill treatments of water or the novel aqueous ozone solution. Enumeration for survivors of each treatment was compared with that of the untreated muscle sections. Water spray chill reduced (P <= 0.05) E. coli O157:H7 0.60 log, whereas the aqueous ozone spray chill reduction (P <= 0.05) was 1.46 log on surfaces of fresh beef. Aqueous ozone spray chill reduced (P <= 0.05) aerobic bacteria 0.99 log, but water spray chill did not significantly (P > 0.05) reduce aerobic bacteria on surfaces of fresh beef. The findings indicate that aqueous ozone can be used as a spray chill intervention to enhance the safety of beef.