Development of Combined Dry Heat and Chlorine Dioxide Gas Treatment with Mechanical Mixing for Inactivation of Salmonella enterica Serovar Montevideo on Mung Bean Seeds†

Abstract

Foodborne outbreaks have been associated with the consumption of fresh sprouted beans. The sprouting conditions of mung bean seeds provide optimal conditions of temperature and relative humidity for any potential pathogenic contaminant on the seeds to grow. The lack of a kill step postsprouting is a major safety concern. Thus, the use of a kill step on the seeds prior to a sprouting step would enhance the safety of fresh sprouts. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effectiveness of the combined thermal and chlorine dioxide gas (3.5 mg/liter of air) treatment with mechanical mixing (tumbling) to eliminate Salmonella on artificially inoculated mung bean seeds. Although no viable Salmonella was recovered from seeds treated in hot water at 60°C for 2 h, these treated seeds failed to germinate. Dry heat treatments (55, 60, or 70°C) for up to 8 h reduced Salmonella populations in excess of 3 log CFU/g. The use of tumbling, while treating the seeds, resulted in up to 1.6 log CFU/g reduction in Salmonella populations compared with no tumbling. Dry heat treatment at 65°C for 18 h with tumbling resulted in a complete inactivation of Salmonella populations on inoculated seeds with low inoculum levels (2.83 log CFU/g) as compared with high inoculum levels (4.75 log CFU/g). The increased reductions in pathogenic populations on the seeds with the use of tumbling could be attributed to increased uniformity of heat transfer and exposure to chlorine dioxide gas. All treated seeds were capable of germinating, as well as the nontreated controls. These results suggest that this combined treatment would be a viable process for enhancing the safety of fresh sprouts.