Combination of aerosolized curcumin and UV-A light for the inactivation of bacteria on fresh produce surfaces.

There is a critical unmet need to improve microbial safety of fresh fruits and vegetables. Current sanitation approaches cannot achieve >2 log inactivation of bacteria on fresh produce. Thus, there is a need to develop antimicrobial strategies that can consistently achieve >2 logs of bacterial inactivation on the surface of diverse fresh produce. Furthermore it is highly desired that these antimicrobial strategies have reduced environmental impact and are clean label solutions for food products. In this study, we evaluated the combination of curcumin and UV-A light radiation for the inactivation of inoculated E. coli O157:H7 and L. innocua bacterial cells on the surface of spinach, lettuce and tomatoes. Curcumin was deposited on the surface of fresh produce by either aerosolization or conventional spray-atomization methods before exposing the contaminated produce to UV-A light for 10 min (total light fluence of 20.4 kJ m-2). Results showed that the proposed combination of aerosolized or sprayed curcumin and UV-A light radiation can reduce the initial Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria innocua load from 6 log CFU cm-2 to approximately 3 log CFU cm-2 on spinach, lettuce and tomato surfaces. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in bacterial reduction between the different types of inoculated fresh produce surfaces (P > .05). Interestingly, subsequent curcumin deposition and UV-A light exposure cycles were not able to further reduce the bacterial load below the observed threshold of approximately 3 log CFU cm-2. Lastly, the combination of aerosolized curcumin and UV-A light radiation did not affect the color or the texture of the treated fresh produce samples. The findings described in this study illustrate the potential of applying aerosolized or sprayed curcumin under UV-A light illumination to improve microbial safety of fresh produce products.