Antimicrobial wash is ‘better than chlorine’
A new antimicrobial wash that kills pathogens on food at home and in restaurants, grocery stores, beverage-manufacturing and food-processing facilities has been licensed to the maker of FIT Fruit and Vegetable Wash.
The new wash was invented by scientists at the University of Georgia (UGA) Center for Food Safety in Griffin, Ga., who announced a year ago they were applying for a patent and seeking to license it. The licensing agreement was made between the University of Georgia Research Foundation (UGARF) and HealthPro Brands, FIT’s parent company, which currently sells an antimicrobial food wash.
News of the new product was released on UGA’s Web site http://georgiafaces.caes.uga.edu.
“The reformulated FIT food wash will kill more harmful microbes faster,” said Mike Doyle, the UGA center’s director who, along with microbiologist Tong Zhao, invented the technology. “The new antimicrobial food wash is orders of magnitude more powerful and twice faster.”
The new technology can kill significant numbers of E. coli and salmonella in less than one minute, but it is recommended that the wash be applied from one to five minutes. The technology can be used as a food wash for produce, poultry, meat and eggs.
The wash has no effects on smell, taste, appearance or shelf-life of treated food, said Doyle, a professor with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and an internationally recognized authority on food safety.
The new antimicrobial wash uses a combination of two inexpensive components that are safe for humans and the environment, Doyle said. It contains levulinic acid and sodium dodecyl sulfate.
The new FIT product also will be available as a spray and immersion solution for foods ranging from fragile leafy produce to fruits and vegetables to meats and poultry, and can be used on food preparation equipment and food transportation vehicles.
Gennaro Gama, a senior technology manager with UGARF, said the new product also could be used as an antimicrobial additive in food products such as ground meats, butters and pastes.
“We look forward to getting our improved product into the hands of industry,” said Todd Wichmann, president and CEO of HealthPro Brands.
He predicted that FIT would replace chlorine as the new standard for reducing harmful bacteria levels in industrial settings.
Chlorine is toxic at high concentrations and may produce off-flavors and undesirable appearance in certain food products. It can damage equipment, too, and can only be used, stored and transported with specialized equipment and trained personnel.
It’s subject to environmental regulations and can damage certain seeds and delicate sprouts.
“We can’t rely on chlorine any longer,” Doyle said. “In addition to being safer and more acceptable in terms of appearance and smell, our studies have shown this new technology to be considerably more effective than chlorine.”
The product outperforms other food sanitization technologies, such as ozone, Doyle said. Ozone, a short-lived gas, must be produced using specialized equipment for immediate use on site.
HealthPro agreed with UGARF’s request to retain the ability to license the technology for humanitarian purposes in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Contamination of the food chain is ubiquitous there, and easy counter-measures are frequently unavailable to those populations,” Gama said.
Doyle and Zhao’s work started with a search for a treatment that would reduce Salmonella enteritidis in poultry processing.
They discovered that using a wash treatment containing levulinic acid together with sodium dodecyl sulfate was effective at killing the pathogen.
“Levulinic acid was selected as the primary focus of this study because it can be produced at low cost and in high yield from renewable feedstock. Its safety for humans has been widely tested, and it has GRAS (generally regarded as safe) status for direct addition to food as a flavoring substance or adjunct,” Doyle said.