Research Publications (Food Safety)

Schematic illustration of PO combined with NFT inhibiting browning and maintaing qualities of fresh‐cut nectarines. Abstract Fresh‐cut fruits were convenient for consumers but vulnerable to quality deterioration, including browning, softening, and volatile aroma loss. In this study, the whole nectarines were pretreated with 100% O2 (pure oxygen, PO) for 2 h and stored at near‐freezing temperature (NFT, −1.5 ± 0.1°C) for 9 days after cutting.

The graphical abstract represents the main steps of the study. Air plasma and helium plasma provided a maximum reduction of 2.79 Log CFU in medium and 0.9 and 1.1 Log CFU/g in fish, respectively. Summary Salmonella contamination of fish after harvest is a significant food safety risk. To control this risk, it was aimed to reduce Salmonella Enteritidis in sea bass by helium and air plasma.

This review article focuses on recent progress in understanding the toxins, pathogens and management of ergot, an important disease of cereals that affects food safety. Abstract Ergot is a fungal disease of many plants but is perhaps most commonly associated with domesticated grasses or cereals, such as rye, wheat, barley, oat, sorghum, millet, maize and rice.

Lanzhou lily (Lilium davidii var. willmottiae) is an exclusive sweet lily variety indigenous to China, which is susceptible to bulbous rot caused by fungal infection during storage. This experiment tests the pathogenicity of the pure culture isolated from the diseased tissue was confirmed in accordance with Koch's postulates, and the pathomycetes were identified based on their morphological and molecular characteristics.

The presence of microbial pathogens in ready-to-eat produce represents a serious health problem. The antibacterial activity of cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) and clove (Syzygium aromaticum L. Merr. & Perry) essential oils (EOs) was determined toward food-borne pathogens by agar disk diffusion and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) assays.

CrAssphages are human gut bacteriophages with potential use as an indicator of human fecal contamination in water and other environmental systems. We determined the prevalence and abundance of crAssphages in water, food, and fecal samples and compared these estimates with the prevalence of norovirus. Samples were tested using two crAssphage-specific qPCR assays (CPQ056 and TN201-203) and for norovirus using TaqMan realtime RT-PCR.

Mycotoxins pose a major problem to poultry production as a result of feed contamination which has deleterious consequences such as production losses and human health risks. A total of 158 chicken feed samples were randomly collected from 46 consenting poultry farms in Oyo State throughout the wet season (April–October; 91 samples) and the dry season (November–March; 67 samples), including compounded feed (n = 129) and feed ingredients (n = 29).

Abstract Conventional food preservation methods such as heat treatment, irradiation, chemical treatment, refrigeration, and coating have various disadvantages, like loss of food quality, nutrition, and cost‐effectiveness. Accordingly, cold plasma is one of the new technologies for food processing and has played an important role in preventing food spoilage. Specifically, in‐package cold plasma has become a modern trend to decontaminate, process, and package food simultaneously.

Introduction

Solanum chilense is a wild relative of tomato reported to exhibit resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. There is potential to improve tomato cultivars via breeding with wild relatives, a process greatly accelerated by suitable genomic and genetic resources.

Methods

Romaine lettuce in the U.S. is primarily grown in California or Arizona and either processed near the growing regions (source processing) or transported long distance for processing in facilities serving distant markets (forward processing).

Reducing the colonization of Salmonella in turkeys is critical to mitigating the risk of its contamination at later stages of production. Given the increased susceptibility of newly hatched poults to Salmonella colonization, it is crucial to implement interventions that target potential transmission routes, including drinking water.

Ensuring food safety measures are essential to minimize the risk of foodborne diseases linked to raw food products. Here, we investigated the efficacy of an innovative approach for the control of Salmonella Typhimurium found in fresh produces. Plasma activated water (PAW) and bacteriophages are emerging effective and valuable alternative methods for microbiological decontamination.

Preliminary investigation showed a notable disparity in the browning of Golden Nectarine (GN) and Chun Xue (CX) during postharvest storage and pulping. Elucidating these underlying mechanisms might bring novel avenues for browning inhibition. To achieve this objective, GN and CX were stored at 25°C and 90 ± 5% relative humidity for 6 days, and then the biochemical changes were investigated.

This study explored the impact of aqueous ozone treatment on chlorpyrifos degradation in cucumbers, optimizing conditions using both response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural network‐genetic algorithm (ANN‐GA). While both models demonstrated high predictability, the ANN optimized conditions surpassed RSM in chlorpyrifos degradation, resulting in enhanced physicochemical and microbial qualities in cucumbers.

Controlled environment agriculture (CEA), or indoor agriculture, encompasses non-traditional farming methods that occur inside climate-controlled structures (e.g., greenhouses, warehouses, high tunnels) allowing for year-round production of fresh produce such as leaf lettuce. However, recent outbreaks and recalls associated with hydroponically grown lettuce contaminated with human pathogens have raised concerns.

Nontransgenic New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) have emerged as a promising tool for food industries, allowing food cultures to contribute to an innovative, safe, and more sustainable food system. NGTs have the potential to be applied to microorganisms, delivering on challenging performance traits like texture, flavour, and an increase of nutritional value.

The phyllosphere, or plant leaf surface, represents a microbial ecosystem of considerable size, holding extraordinary biodiversity and enormous potential for the discovery of new products, tools, and applications in biotechnology, agriculture, medicine, and elsewhere.

Strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) is a widely favored horticultural crop renowned for its unique taste and flavor. To develop an accurate predictive model for strawberry freshness, colorimetric data, total soluble solids, titratable acidity, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were investigated in fully ripe 'Jukhyang' and 'Merry Queen' strawberries. Data measurements were conducted after 0, 4, 8, and 12 days of cold storage (10 °C, 79% RH).

This study investigated the effect of melatonin (MT) on postharvest storage quality of passion fruit. Passion fruits were treated with four different concentrations of MT solutions (100, 200, 300 and 400 μmol/L) for 30 min and stored for 8 days.

Fruits flavor deterioration is extremely likely to occur during post-harvest storage, which not only damages quality but also seriously affects its market value. This work focuses on the study of fruits deterioration odorants during storage by describing their chemical compositions (i.e., alcohols, aldehydes, acids, and sulfur-containing compounds).

In this work, the MeJA-loaded gelatin/pullulan/chitosan composite biofilm was prepared to inhibit the chilling lignification of the loquat fruit during storage at 0 °C. The firmness and lignin content were decreased by 89 % and 81.77 % after MeJA-loaded biofilm treatment. Malondialdehyde (MDA) production was almost completely suppressed and chilling injury of loquat fruit was significantly reduced.

Safou (Dacryodes edulis H.J.Lam) is a seasonal fruit of great importance in the diet and economy of the populations of safou-producing countries. However, the valorization of this fruit is limited due to postharvest losses linked to the softening of the fruit, though this fruit is an essential source of macro- and micronutrients.

Granulation is a serious physiological disorder in citrus fruit, which impairs the fruit quality and causes economic losses to the citrus industry. ‘Harumi’ ((Citrus unshiu × C. sinensis) × C. reticulate), a mandarin-type variety, is prone to granulation, especially after long-term storage.

Light and temperature are key factors influencing the accumulation of anthocyanin in fruit crops. To assess the effects of fruit bagging during development and high post-ripening temperature on ‘Hongyang’ kiwifruit, we compared the pigmentation phenotypes and expression levels of anthocyanin-related genes between bagged and unbagged treatments, and between 25 °C and 37 °C postharvest storage temperatures.

Fresh grapes are characterized by a short shelf life and are often subjected to quality losses during post-harvest storage. The quality assessment of grapes using image analysis may be a useful approach using non-destructive methods. This study aimed to compare the effect of different storage methods on the grape image texture parameters of the fruit outer structure.