Thermal lethality of Salmonella Senftenberg and Listeria innocua on fully cooked and vacuum packaged chicken breast strips during hot water pasteurization

• Published in: Journal of food protection 2002-10, Vol.65 (10), p.1561-1564
• Main Authors: MURPHY, R. Y, BERRANG, M. E
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Biological and medical sciences; Chickens; Colony Count, Microbial; Cooking - methods; Food industries; Food Microbiology; Food Packaging - methods; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Hot Temperature - adverse effects; Listeria - growth & development; Meat and meat product industries; Meat Products - microbiology; Salmonella - growth & development; Vacuum
• ISSN: 0362-028X; 1944-9097
• DOI: 10.4315/0362-028X-65.10.1561

Seven log10 CFU of Salmonella Senftenberg or Listeria innocua were surface inoculated on fully cooked chicken breast strips. The inoculated strips (227 or 454 g) were vacuum packaged in 0.2-mm-thick pouches (114 by 114 mm and 241 by 114 mm, respectively). The products were then heat treated in a hot water cooker at 88 degrees C for 0 to 40 min. After heat treatment, Salmonella Senftenberg and L. innocua survivors were enumerated. Increasing treatment time increased the thermal lethality for Salmonella Senftenberg and L. innocua. The effect of treatment time interacted with product size. To achieve a 7-log10 reduction for Salmonella Senftenberg and L. innocua, the 454-g packages needed to be heat treated for 34 min and the 227-g packages needed to be treated for 20 min. Models were developed to correlate treatment time with bacterial survival rate and could be used to predict up to a 7-log10 reduction of Salmonella Senftenberg or L. innocua for similar products.