Persistent Populations: Methods development to investigate harborage of pathogens in low-moisture food environments

There is alack of fundamental and foundational knowledge about how much moisture is required for bacteria to persist in LMF processing environments, as well as a lack of understanding of thepotential for contaminated product to build up on surfaces and survive for extended periods of time between cleaning and sanitation schedules. This research proposal requests seed funding and is designed to generate preliminary data and foundational knowledge that would inform a larger, collaborative, multi-institutional research project. The proposed work will develop methods that can be used to study Low-Moisture Food Persistent Bacterial Populations (LMF PBPs), identify a potential surrogate that could be used in future studies or for in-plant cleaning and sanitation validation/verification, and investigate the potential and quantification of cross-contamination from LMF PBPs to new product, succinctly described as:1. Develop a protocol for Low-Moisture Food Persistent Bacterial Populations (LMF PBPs) formation,2. Identify a surrogate for future studies and in-plant validations related to LMF PBPs, and3. Evaluate and quantify cross-contamination from LMF PBPs to noncontaminated product.