6 replies to this topic

[hygienic]

Hi All

 

I am asking for a special machine for washing and sanitizing Parsley & Rocca particularly , as their microbiological count are very high and its not easy to remove or reduce them by manual washing and sanitizing .

 

Please advise if there is a new technology ,photos or a website that I can go through .

 

Regards

Hygienic

 

[GMO]

I have to admit to ignorance.  What is Rocca?  I tried Wikipedia...

 

Rocca may refer to:

• Rocca (surname)
• Rocca (architecture), a fortifiable stronghold
• Rocca (crater), a lunar crater
• Rocca (Italian-American rapper), Italian–American rapper, famous for his album Sexy Smooth
• Rocca (French rapper) (born 1975), French–Colombian rapper

 

I don't think you mean any of these.  Rocket?  I can imagine parsley, especially curly parsley is a nightmare.  There are a few washing systems out there normally using chlorinated water and high turbulence to wash leaves.  It's been a while since I used them but agree they're not perfect.  1-2 log reduction is probably all you'll get.  Years ago I did some validation research on these processes and found that there was very poor evidence for chlorinated water actually killing pathogens on the leaf surface; the chlorination was mainly there to avoid the water getting too much loading.

 

A bit of personal experience though.  I used to work in a sandwich site with terrible problems with chopped onions.  Cleaning them through these wash systems was ineffective because of the layers.  Listeria fails were not unheard of.  Moved to another site; they did a second step.  They dipped the onions in a dilute acetic acid solution, drained, rinsed and put through the chlorinated water wash.  It worked.  Listeria fails were unheard of.  Now I can't remember the exact concentrations and this doesn't come without risk but there are a couple of reasons why this might actually work.  Organic acids (i.e. acids containing carbon) are pretty good at killing pathogens, more so than their pH would suggest.  Additionally even with the rinse, the onion surfaces would be acidified.  When you are using chlorine or hypochlorite, it is actually the undissociated hypochlorous acid which is the most effective agent in killing bacteria, not the hypochlorite or chlorine.  To get a better concentration of HOCl you need to lower the pH closer to neutral.  It could be the acidification of the onion surface just made the chlorine wash more effective so that may be an option for your parsley?

[hygienic]

I have to admit to ignorance.  What is Rocca?  I tried Wikipedia...

 

Rocca may refer to:

• Rocca (surname)
• Rocca (architecture), a fortifiable stronghold
• Rocca (crater), a lunar crater
• Rocca (Italian-American rapper), Italian–American rapper, famous for his album Sexy Smooth
• Rocca (French rapper) (born 1975), French–Colombian rapper

 

I don't think you mean any of these.  Rocket?  I can imagine parsley, especially curly parsley is a nightmare.  There are a few washing systems out there normally using chlorinated water and high turbulence to wash leaves.  It's been a while since I used them but agree they're not perfect.  1-2 log reduction is probably all you'll get.  Years ago I did some validation research on these processes and found that there was very poor evidence for chlorinated water actually killing pathogens on the leaf surface; the chlorination was mainly there to avoid the water getting too much loading.

 

A bit of personal experience though.  I used to work in a sandwich site with terrible problems with chopped onions.  Cleaning them through these wash systems was ineffective because of the layers.  Listeria fails were not unheard of.  Moved to another site; they did a second step.  They dipped the onions in a dilute acetic acid solution, drained, rinsed and put through the chlorinated water wash.  It worked.  Listeria fails were unheard of.  Now I can't remember the exact concentrations and this doesn't come without risk but there are a couple of reasons why this might actually work.  Organic acids (i.e. acids containing carbon) are pretty good at killing pathogens, more so than their pH would suggest.  Additionally even with the rinse, the onion surfaces would be acidified.  When you are using chlorine or hypochlorite, it is actually the undissociated hypochlorous acid which is the most effective agent in killing bacteria, not the hypochlorite or chlorine.  To get a better concentration of HOCl you need to lower the pH closer to neutral.  It could be the acidification of the onion surface just made the chlorine wash more effective so that may be an option for your parsley?

Dear GMO:

thanks a lot for this explanation ,really interesting , actually we don't have any issue with Onion the problem only for watercress and parsley only , we are looking for a new technique which help to reduce the pathogenic bacteria to the acceptable level  - Safe level

 

Thanks

Regards

[Charles.C]

Hi Hygienic,

 

I think you maybe missed the last line of GMO's Post.

 

Is this Pre-Farmgate or Post-Farmgate ?

 

It depends what you mean by "Acceptable Level", ie How much of What ? (and Please don't say "free of Pathogens"

 

As far as a specific "Machine" is concerned I have no idea. Sorry.

 

The typical maximum APC reduction via "low-medium" levels of, say,  hypochlorite is 1-2 Log as per GMO's comment. (IIRC certain products [eg bean sprouts] notorious for high counts/pathogens are USFDA specified to use much higher levels.)

 

The popular peroxyacetic acid mixes discussed in various threads on this Forum  might be a bit more powerful than hypochlorite but are also probably less simple to routinely work with / more expensive.

 

IIRC, literature (Books on Fresh Produce) described methods have been claimed to achieve up to 5 log but afaik these are not yet offered commercially. But i might be wrong since not directly involved this area.

[hygienic]

Hi Hygienic,

 

I think you maybe missed the last line of GMO's Post.

 

Is this Pre-Farmgate or Post-Farmgate ?

 

It depends what you mean by "Acceptable Level", ie How much of What ? (and Please don't say "free of Pathogens"

 

As far as a specific "Machine" is concerned I have no idea. Sorry.

 

The typical maximum APC reduction via "low-medium" levels of, say,  hypochlorite is 1-2 Log as per GMO's comment. (IIRC certain products [eg bean sprouts] notorious for high counts/pathogens are USFDA specified to use much higher levels.)

 

The popular peroxyacetic acid mixes discussed in various threads on this Forum  might be a bit more powerful than hypochlorite but are also probably less simple to routinely work with / more expensive.

 

IIRC, literature (Books on Fresh Produce) described methods have been claimed to achieve up to 5 log but afaik these are not yet offered commercially. But i might be wrong since not directly involved this area.

Sorry for late reply , acceptable level (means met the criteria set  by the Authority ) example ( E.coli should be NIL -0 ). this is during the washing and sanitizing in the kitchen), Normal Sanitizing (soaking with water & Chlorination tablet )for Parsley is not adequate to give an acceptable result  through the lab test , this is the issue here .

 

I have a question here in the same scenario , Is there any effect while using the portable water during the sanitation of vegetables ? I mean what is the water temperature to be used while sanitizing the vegetable in the kitchen ?

 

Regards

Hygienic

[majoy]

When I used to work in an food service catering facility, we have tons of fruits and vegetables to wash on a daily basis.

We use Nilma vegetable wash to agitate and ensure that fruits and vegetables are thoroughly rinse, washed and sanitized. Of course with the use of acceptable chlorine sanitizer for fruits and vegetables.

 

Nilma's ATIR vegetable washer line uses whirlpool action to clean vegetables. Models are floor-standing and constructed of heavy-grade steel. Washer drum and rim are easily removable for cleaning.

 

This machine helps in thorough agitation of these fruits/vegetables (what i call "floaters" vegetables like peppers, onions etc.) during sanitization step.

 

I don't know where you are, but have you tried looking into ozone water to sanitized frutis and veg? I did an experiment previously and reduction in microbial load is really promising. That was 4-5 yrs ago, but we never used it because, regulations then does not exist.

 

Best of luck on your search.

[GMO]

Sorry for late reply , acceptable level (means met the criteria set  by the Authority ) example ( E.coli should be NIL -0 ). this is during the washing and sanitizing in the kitchen), Normal Sanitizing (soaking with water & Chlorination tablet )for Parsley is not adequate to give an acceptable result  through the lab test , this is the issue here .

 

I have a question here in the same scenario , Is there any effect while using the portable water during the sanitation of vegetables ? I mean what is the water temperature to be used while sanitizing the vegetable in the kitchen ?

 

Regards

Hygienic

 

For chlorination you want the water to be cold.  Not only to keep the produce crisp but hot water renders chlorine less effective.  I would look at the turbulence.  I remember looking into a HACCP study for a site I was consulting with once and the literature seemed to imply the chlorine was not there to kill the pathogens on the surface of the vegetables or herbs but to keep counts down in the water.  What actually removed the pathogens was the turbulent washing.  So your description of "soaking" may not be enough to remove the pathogens from the surface.  There are washing systems which agitate the leaves in chlorinated water and also normally then transfer them to high care at the same time.  Another thing to think about is how you then remove the water.  Depending on how effective the chlorine has been, you want to then take off the water which has been used to remove your pathogens.  Do you use a "spinner" for this?