Fear of microbial contamination is an over riding factor that weighs heavily in the minds of food processors, caterers and institutional food agencies. Of course plenty of knowledge exists to day regarding various ways of achieving satisfactory hygiene and sanitation that can pre-empt serious food safety problems. Chlorine has been used since ages as a disinfecting chemical by the food and beverage industry while protected water supplies world over use this chemical with good effect. However chlorine being a gas tends to get out of the system within a few minutes unless used in a closed loop. If the dream of some scientists becomes a reality, it may be possible to trap chlorine for a longer time on special surfaces like plastics and steel so that its continued presence acts as a deterrent to many pathogens that cause food safety problems. Here is a take on this new approach.
"Scientists at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have recently received a four-year, $488,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) to create a "self-sanitizing" top layer for food processing surfaces such as counters and conveyors. In preliminary research published in the Journal of Food Protection from Journal of Food Protection in 2008 (71(10):2042-2047), a team led by Julie Goddard, PhD, assistant professor of food science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, reported that halamine-infused surfaces could achieve a 5-log reduction for a number of organisms relevant to food quality, including Listeria and E. coli. "When you modify the surface of food processing materials, like some plastics and stainless steels, you can introduce halamine into just the surface layer," Dr. Goddard said in an interview with Food Quality. "Halamine complexes chlorine very strongly, so every time you rinse the surface with bleach, it recharges the layer's existing antimicrobial power. "With the new AFRI grant, Dr. Goddard's team will improve the technology and adapt it to other polymers, such as gasket material, and to stainless steel. "We'll also improve the activity and stability of the halamine," she said. "Our early studies are very promising. You could potentially apply this coating to existing materials; otherwise, it would be important to look at where in the plant it would be most useful and fit new portions of materials into existing ones."
Though this is still at a conceptual stage, there is sufficient basis to think that such an approach may work and soon the technology would be available to the processing industry and catering sector. There are some imponderable factors like the effectiveness of bonding between halamine and the solid surfaces, durability of the coating, any ill effect of continued emission of chlorine from the surface, effectiveness against some of the frequent pathogenic infections, etc and a full fledged research can only provide satisfactory answers to these issues.
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com
1 comment:
Very interesting. There is new technology from a Belgium chemical manufacturer. They have found a solution to biofilm contaminations in the food & beverage industries using their formulated enzymes to attack and remove biofilm. The enzyme detergent acts specifically on the protective structure protecting the microorganisms from traditional chemicals like chlorine and bleach. Their formulated enzymes act specifically on the "EPS" structure, destroy it so the disinfection step completely kills all the exposed bacteria. 100% effective and proven!
They have opened an office in the U.S. to support their growth under the name REALZYME LLC.
Realco is the mother company headquartered in Belgium.
Enzymes are safe and have a positive impact on the environment.
feel free to email me with comments or questions.
n.shehorn@realzyme.com
Noel
Post a Comment