Modelling Ways to Prevent Attachment of Enteric Pathogens to Fresh Salad Produce

<p>Leafy green and other salad vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet, providing vitamins, minerals, and dietary fibre. Ready-to-eat prepared salads are particularly popular and so are of significant economic importance. The food industry employs a range of controls to provide safe salad products on the supermarket shelves. This includes processes to remove or kill food poisoning organisms such as Salmonella on salad leaves. Recent advances in technology now provide an opportunity to study how these systems work in much more detail. This i-CASE Studentship will investigate novel methods of preventing food poisoning pathogens from attaching to the surface of salad leaves. It will lead to a better understanding of the interaction between food-borne pathogens and chemicals released from salad produce, and the resident flora on the plant's surface. Model findings will be evaluated using industrial-scale salad processing and washing systems at Campden BRI. </p>