UMMS Affiliation
Department of Neurological Surgery
Publication Date
2021-08-31
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
Bacteria | Environmental Public Health
Abstract
Recent recalls of stone fruit due to potential Listeria contamination and associated foodborne outbreaks highlight the risk for pathogen transmission through stone-fruit consumption. Particularly, surface contamination of fruits increases the risk for cross-contamination of produce during processing and storage. This highlights the need for quality control in stone fruits intended for consumption. To develop effective food safety practices, it is essential to determine the critical factors during stone-fruit processing that influence Listeria survival. Therefore, this study evaluated the ability of Listeria to survive on peaches and nectarines under simulated stone-fruit loading and staging, waxing and fungicide application and storage conditions. The results of our study indicate that current stone-fruit handling conditions do not favor Listeria growth. However, once fruit is contaminated, Listeria can survive on the fruit surface in significant numbers under current processing conditions. Therefore, there is a need to develop and implement preventive controls at the stone-fruit packinghouse to prevent Listeria contamination and deter pathogen persistence.
Keywords
Listeria monocytogenes, packinghouse operations, stone fruits, survival
Rights and Permissions
Copyright © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
DOI of Published Version
10.3390/ijerph18179174
Source
Kuttappan D, Muyyarikkandy MS, Mathew E, Amalaradjou MA. Listeria monocytogenes Survival on Peaches and Nectarines under Conditions Simulating Commercial Stone-Fruit Packinghouse Operations. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Aug 31;18(17):9174. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18179174. PMID: 34501764; PMCID: PMC8431221. Link to article on publisher's site
Journal/Book/Conference Title
International journal of environmental research and public health
Related Resources
PubMed ID
34501764
Repository Citation
Kuttappan D, Muyyarikkandy MS, Mathew E, Amalaradjou MA. (2021). Listeria monocytogenes Survival on Peaches and Nectarines under Conditions Simulating Commercial Stone-Fruit Packinghouse Operations. Open Access Publications by UMass Chan Authors. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18179174. Retrieved from https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/oapubs/4891
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.