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A microbial contamination ? What solutions do we have ?

2 March 2021 In Enjeux

A microbial contamination ? What solutions do we have ?

 

There are several solutions to get rid of a #microbial contamination problem

1️⃣   Chemistry
Beyond regulatory bans, there is a consensus not to adopt this solution. Such as#ethyleneoxide found on many #sesame #psyllium products from India.
2️⃣  Ionization
It is an effective technology and is allowed in France only for a list of products. If these products are not in the list, they cannot be processed. Spices can be, but in this case it must be mentioned on the final labeling “treated with ionizing radiation”. Due to this regulatory obligation, there are hardly any products treated with this technology !
3️⃣   Waves
The principle of waves that agitate the water molecules in the product is interesting, but in practice it is simply not effective with low moisture products. The humidity of a dry product is not uniform, so the product is overheated in some places and not enough in others.
4️⃣ High pressure
High pressure, we should say very high pressure, is a technology that is developing but it is not suitable for low moisture products. It is difficult to pass this pressure on this type of dry product while it works well on liquid products or shellfish.

5️⃣  Heat
This is the best solution, but not anyhow…

🌡 The temperature / time ratio: simply applying a dry product by heating it with hot air does not guarantee an effective and homogeneous reduction of the microbial load unless it reaches very high temperatures which will damage the product.
🌡 The most effective solution is to add pressure control to the time / temperature pair. The saturated steam thus applied to the product is perfectly effective in reducing any #microbial load and at the same time any #infestation (eggs, larvae, insects).
🌡 Saturated steam, neither dry nor wet, can be controlled by pressure. Depending on the reduction objective to be reached, we can thus treat products between 85 to 120 ° C with this technique, while it would be necessary, with simple dry heat at ambient pressure, to climb to temperatures of 200 ° C or more to obtain the same load reduction!

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