Development Of Bacteriophage Cocktail Methods For Reduction Of Salmonella During Food Processing

A previous research has suggested that the presence of Salmonella in many livestock species can increase significantly after process. Traditionally the environment in food processing facilities have been treated with chemical santitizers. These sanitizers have been effective but have some disadvantages such as high cost, corrosiveness to machinery, inactivated by organic material, inactivated by variations in heat and pH, and posing a potential hazard to the environment and the workers. This warrants the development of a new means of sanitation in the food processing industry such as bacteriophage treatment. We previously produced an anti-Salmonella phage cocktail that reduced colonization when the foods were exposed to an environment heavily contaminated with Salmonella, the main conclusions are listed as follows:1,A cocktail of five bacteriophages was isolated and purified for two Salmonella serotypes (S.enteritidis and S.typhimurium) and three other serotypes (S.mbandaka, S.johannesburg, and S.idikan) that were previously isolated from finished rendered products.2,In this study, Salmonella adsorption of different materials such as rubber, stainless steel and HDPE plastic as follows: rubber has the rate of 0.01%~0.1%, the others have the adsorption rate of 0.1%~1%. Although material surfaces have the low rate to adsorb Salmonella, there also can have the cross-contamination during food processing due to the rapid grow of Salmonella.3,The optimized cocktail was then used to treat the attached Salmonella cocktail on templates of steel, plastic and rubber at 20°, 30°, and 40°C. The bacteriophage cocktail was found to be most effective at 30°C. Bacteriophage treatment of the surface materials with attached Salmonella resulted in a ca. 2.5 log decrease in the Salmonella count at MOI1000 at 30°C for all surface materials.As compared with chemical sanitizers, bacteriophages are not corrosive to equipment and are not harmful to the environment like many chemical sanitizers do. Meantime the phage has the advantages which included easily separated, simple prepared and lower cost. This study has demonstrated that a bacteriophage cocktail can be used to reduce Salmonella on the surfaces found within facility at various temperatures and in various forms of attachment. Bacteriophage treatment for pathogen inactivation during food processing has been considered a very effective biological control method.