1 reply to this topic

[jfrench96673]

Hello! 

I am wondering if anyone has any research/documentation or regulatory information on Ready to eat status of dehydrated fruits and vegetables? We work with dehydrated onion and garlic and multiple dehydrated fruits some of these items are not able to be treated (ETO, irridiation etc.) where they are sourced from. 

 

I am wondering if these types of products untreated are considered Ready-To-Eat. 

 

Thank you 

[jfrey123]

Hmmmm, almost kind of my wheelhouse, except I dealt with them as ingredients to be used for further processing/cooking in my spice and dehydrated vegetable plants.  I'm not aware of any white papers that would specify them being automatically RTE, as it will depend on the drying process used.  Some of the higher quality and more expensive product available to buy might be washed and dried aseptically in a proper indoor facility (use of autoclaves and such); but the majority of it coming from third world countries is sundried, often outdoors on large tarps leaving it open to all sorts of potential pathogen issues.  Yes, it's low moisture and many will jump to that as a defense, but my spice plant had plenty of raw material test positive for salmonella.  Our sister plant right next door was a dry pasteurization facility, treating teas and herbs and dehydrated fruits/vegetables and saw plenty of business treating products that were positive for pathogens.

 

Best suggestion is to approach these suppliers independently, gather information about their processes and their food safety statements.  Unless their target market is a consumer (maybe they're providing banana chips or apple chips, etc), most of them are going to be selling dehydrated ingredients to other manufacturers as RTC.