Food Protection Trends - January/February 2021 - 53

Onion
Pepper

Figure 2.

Mango
Cucumber
Tomato

FIGURE 2. Behavior of Salmonella on fresh-cut produce items stored at 10°C for up to 96 h. Bacterial populations
(log CFU/g) are the means of replicate trials (n = 3); error bars represent standard deviations.

used as the public health control, food that is displayed
or held for sale or service may be held for a period of 4
to 6 h, depending on ambient temperature, after which
point the product must be cooked and served, consumed,
or discarded. When food is prepared on-site at a retail
establishment and held for more than 24 h on-site, the
item must be clearly date marked and held at ≤5°C for no
more than 7 days (43). A food item that is prepared and
packaged by a food processing plant, and not a retail food
establishment, may be held at the retail establishment, once
opened, for a time not to exceed the manufacturer's use-by
date based on food safety; holding at ≤5°C is required if the
item is TCS. Our results suggest that on holding at >5°C,
fresh-cut onion, pepper, mango, and cucumber all support
growth of at least one pathogen that is reasonably likely
to occur on the raw product. In addition to tomato that is
already designated a TCS food, each of these fresh-cut items
would reasonably be designated as a TCS food.
As McEntire (31) noted, good manufacturing practices under
the Food Safety Modernization Act state, in part, in 21 CFR 117:
(b) Manufacturing operations. (2) All food manufacturing,
including packaging and storage, shall be conducted under
such conditions and controls as are necessary to minimize
the potential for the growth of microorganisms, or for
the contamination of food. One way to comply with this
requirement is careful monitoring of physical factors such
as time, temperature, humidity, aw, pH, pressure, flow rate,
and manufacturing operations such as freezing, dehydration,
heat processing, acidification, and refrigeration to ensure
that mechanical breakdowns, time delays, temperature
fluctuations, and other factors do not contribute to the
decomposition or contamination of food.

(3) Food that can support the rapid growth of undesirable
microorganisms, particularly those of public health
significance, shall be held in a manner that prevents the food
from becoming adulterated within the meaning of the act.
Compliance with this requirement may be accomplished by
any effective means, including: (i) Maintaining refrigerated
foods at 45°F (7.2°C) or below as appropriate for the
particular food involved (31, 45).
McEntire (31) notes that essentially good manufacturing
practices require the food industry to take measures to
minimize the growth of pathogens in food. However, the
food industry lacks information on which specific fresh
fruits and vegetables support pathogen growth, thereby
complicating the application of risk-based preventive
controls such as time and temperature. And, given the broad
number of intrinsic and extrinsic factors that affect pathogen
growth on fresh-cut produce (26, 36), we would argue that
application of appropriate food safety controls for fresh-cut
produce can be complicated, especially at the consumer-retail
interface. In some instances, the fresh-cut produce items
that we studied supported pathogen growth even held under
refrigeration (5°C). Evaluating risk at the manufacturing level
or at retail should include the consideration that fresh-cut
produce may support the growth of pathogens, even when
proper temperature controls are in place. Manufacturers
and retailers intent on minimizing risk may need to consider
additional interventions, i.e., heat or antimicrobial treatment,
to protect public health.
Also notable in this study is that although pathogen growth
was often not observed at 5°C, temperature control did not
result in any dramatic decrease in pathogen populations. The
Δ-log values at the end of incubation at 5°C (7 days) suggest

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