Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania » Eastern Regional Research Center » Microbial and Chemical Food Safety » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #393200
Research Project: Advanced Methods for Predictive Modeling of Bacterial Growth and Survival in Foods

Location: Microbial and Chemical Food Safety

Title: Survival of pathogenic Escherichia coli in ground chicken with acetic acid and allyl Isothiocyanate subjected to high hydrostatic pressure

Author
item Sheen, Shiowshuh - Allen
item HUANG, CHI-YUN - National Taiwan University
item CHUANG, SHIHYU - University Of Massachusetts, Amherst

Submitted to: Journal of Food Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/5/2022
Publication Date: 10/1/2022
Citation: Sheen, S., Huang, C., Chuang, S. 2022. Survival of pathogenic Escherichia coli in ground chicken with acetic acid and allyl Isothiocyanate subjected to high hydrostatic pressure. Journal of Food Science. 87(11):5042-5053. https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.16346.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.16346

Interpretive Summary: Intact or non-intact meat and poultry are high-risk foods due to potential contamination with Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7 and uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) in the supply chain. This study applied high pressure processing (HPP), with adding acetic acid and natural antimicrobial food-grade essential oils to enhance the pathogen inactivation effects. This study also developed predictive models that may assist the food industries and government authorities for risk assessment.

Technical Abstract: Meats including poultry are prone to contamination with foodborne pathogens through contact with processing (e.g., slaughtering) equipment. In this study, for food safety enhancement and meat quality retention, mild levels of high hydrostatic pressure were combined with food grade additives (i.e., ally isothiocyanate (AITC) and acetic acid (AA), functioned as antimicrobials) to inactivate pathogenic Escherichia coli in ground chicken. The reductions of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7 and uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) were described as a function of high hydrostatic pressure (200-350 MPa), process-holding time (10-25 minutes), AITC concentration (0.05-0.20% w/w), and AA concentration (0.10-0.30% w/w) using a full factorial design. The antimicrobials had little influence on bacterial inactivation without high pressure. Without the antimicrobials, a high-pressure treatment at 300 MPa and 4 ' for 15 minutes reduced E. coli O157:H7 and UPEC by only 1.5 and 2.5 log CFU/g, respectively. A 5-log reduction was achieved when AITC and AA were combined with high pressure, indicating a synergistic effect. The survivors were further reduced to below the detection limit of 1 log CFU/g after subsequent storage tests at 4 ' and 10 ' for 10 days. The STEC O157:H7 was found slightly more resistant than UPEC in our test matrix. The developed models showed good fits with experimental data (R2 > 0.95 for linear models; Pr > F (< 0.0001) for dimensionless nonlinear models); which may help processors find/optimize the processing parameters to achieve target foodborne pathogen reductions for food safety requirements.