IMPROVING PATHOGEN INACTIVATION ON HARD-TO-CLEAN SURFACES IN LOW MOISTURE FOOD ENVIRONMENTS USING THERMAL SANITIZATION

The goal of this project is to develop strategies to eliminate pathogens within hard-to-clean locations on the surface of food production equipment.Objective 1: Develop methods for surface inoculation and thermal surface sanitization research.Objective 2: Develop and validate a model for surface thermal inactivation to predict microbial lethality from superheated steam within "hard-to-clean" locations.Objective 3: Evaluate the efficacy of steam "tenting" for thermal surface sanitization within "hard-to-clean" locations.