Assessment of contamination of Salmonella spp. in imported black pepper and sesame seed and salmonella inactivation by gamma irradiation

Maria Cristina D'Oca; Anna Maria Di Noto; Antonio Bartolotta; Aldo Parlato; Luisa Nicastro; Sonia Sciortino; Cinzia Cardamone

doi:10.4081/ijfs.2021.8914

Assessment of contamination of Salmonella spp. in imported black pepper and sesame seed and salmonella inactivation by gamma irradiation

Ital J Food Saf. 2021 Apr 7;10(1):8914. doi: 10.4081/ijfs.2021.8914. eCollection 2021 Mar 11.

Authors

Maria Cristina D'Oca¹, Anna Maria Di Noto², Antonio Bartolotta¹, Aldo Parlato³, Luisa Nicastro², Sonia Sciortino², Cinzia Cardamone²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and Chemistry, University of Palermo.
² Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Palermo "A. Mirri".
³ Department of Energy, Engineering of the information and Mathematical Models, University of Palermo, Italy.

Abstract

This study shows the frequency of seeds samples contaminated by Salmonella spp. collected randomly from local markets; on 30 black pepper sample no contaminated sample was found while Salmonella spp. was detected in 3 of 36 (8.3%) analyzed sesame samples; three different serotypes were identified: S. Montevideo, S. Stanleyville e S. Tilene. The efficacy of gamma irradiation to inactivate Salmonella Montevideo in black pepper and sesame irradiated between 1 and 5 kGy was evaluated. 3 kGy is sufficient to reduce of 3-4 log CFU/g; whereas 5 kGy have been need to reduce 5.5-6 log CFU/g for samples of black pepper and sesame. No statistically significant differences were found between black pepper and sesame.

Keywords: Food irradiation; Microbial quality; Pepper and Sesame seed; Salmonella..

Grants and funding

Funding: None.