Phage technology can reduce Salmonella on ground turkey

Phage decontamination technology reduced Salmonella levels in a three-month ground turkey pilot plant trial, showing the safety and effectiveness of the food safety intervention in a real world processing environment.

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Aunt_Spray | iStockPhoto.com
Aunt_Spray | iStockPhoto.com

Phage decontamination technology reduced Salmonella levels in a three-month ground turkey pilot plant trial, showing the safety and effectiveness of the food safety intervention in a real world processing environment.

“Phage has proven to be a beneficial intervention as a part of our system. As part of our data collection, we have noticed no impact on the shelf-life of our product,” Benjamin Roman, FSQA Director, Prestage Foods, said during Industry Insights on Using Phage to Combat Salmonella and Listeria in Meats and Fish.

“We have found that it was a methodological easy step to incorporate into our process that did not interfere with our production times.”

Salmonella is gram-negative anaerobic bacterium that is responsible for approximately 1.35 million illnesses, 26,500 hospitalizations and 420 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The bacteria has become increasingly multi-drug resistant, making it more difficult to treat.

How phage technology works

Phage decontamination technology harnesses viruses to target and destroy bacterial cells on a surface or in an organism. Phages are harmless to people, only activating when a specific bacterium is present.

Phage technology offers several benefits as a processing aid. The decontamination technology has no organoleptic influences in the finished product, no wastewater issues, no worker safety issues and is non-corrosive to equipment and/or concrete surfaces.

“We’ve found that it complements well with the hurdle approach because we can use antimicrobials as a final intervention when the phage comes into play,” Roman explained.

The hurdle approach to food safety combines several mitigating approaches – each of which would typically be ineffective when used solo – to control or eliminate pathogens on food products.

In a three-month pilot plant trial, ground turkey samples that were treated with the phage technology were collected daily and sent for third party analysis. The results revealed significant differences when compared to non-phage interventions.

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