University of Guelph

Purpose

Salmonella causes the majority of foodborne outbreaks associated with low moisture foods. Approaches to destroy Salmonella in low moisture foods are designed to reduce the concentration of Salmonella in the food by 5 orders of magnitude. However, in certain cases, due to the physical and chemical characteristics of the food, a 5 log reduction may not be possible. In such cases, it is necessary to demonstrate that the concentration and potential growth of Salmonella is low enough that a 5 log reduction is not needed. The objectives of this research are to investigate the growth kinetics of Salmonella and Enterococcus (a non-pathogenic surrogate used to validate antimicrobial treatments) in low moisture foods including walnuts, sunflower, and wheat, by developing microbial survival data of the Salmonella and Enterococcus in the three foods, to develop predictive mathematical growth models that describe the behavior of the bacteria in low moisture foods