Assessing the antimicrobial potential of aerosolised electrochemically activated solutions (ECAS) for reducing the microbial bio-burden on fresh food produce held under cooled or cold storage conditions

- Effect of electrochemically activated fog (ECAF) on fresh produce was investigated.
- An ECAF delivery technology platform was developed.
- ECAF was shown to significantly reduce the microbial bio-burden on fresh produce.
- Study results will inform industrial scale-up trials within commercial facilities.

The main aim of this study was to assess the antimicrobial efficacy of electrochemically activated fog (ECAF) for reducing the microbial bio-burden on artificially inoculated fresh produce held under cooled (cucumber and vine tomatoes) or cold (rocket and broccoli) storage conditions. The ECAF treatment (1100 ± 5 mV ORP; 50 ± 5 mg L−1 free chlorine; 2.7 ± 0.1 pH) resulted in a significant log reduction in the potential pathogen E. coli recovered from rocket (2.644 Log10 CFU g−1), broccoli (4.204 Log10 CFU g−1), cucumber (3.951 Log10 CFU g−1) and tomatoes (2.535 Log10 CFU g-1) after 5 days. ECAF treatment also resulted in a significant log reduction in potential spoilage organisms, whereby a 3.533 Log10 CFU g−1, 2.174 Log10 CFU g−1 and 1.430 Log10 CFU g−1 reduction in presumptive Pseudomonads was observed for rocket, broccoli and cucumber respectively, and a 3.527 Log10 CFU g−1 reduction in presumptive Penicillium spp. was observed for tomatoes (after 5 days). No adverse visual effects on produce were recorded. The results of this study will inform industrial scale-up trials within commercial facilities (assessing shelf-life, microbial quality and organoleptic assessment) to assess the developed ECAF technology platform within a real food processing environment.