Uppal, Kamaldeep Kaur2010-12-202010-12-202010-12-20http://hdl.handle.net/2097/7054The United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service require that processors of ready-to-eat (RTE) meat and poultry products implement post- processing intervention strategies for controlling Listeria monocytogenes. The objective of our study was to determine the effect of packaging methods and storage time on reducing L. monocytogenes in shelf-stable meat snacks. Commercially available kippered beef steak strips (14 × 2.5 cm rectangle piece) and turkey tenders (4 × 4 cm square piece) were dipped into a five-strain L. monocytogenes cocktail, and dried at 23°C until a water activity of approximately 0.80 was achieved. Inoculated samples were packaged with four treatments: 1) vacuum, 2) nitrogen flushed with oxygen scavenger, 3) heat sealed with oxygen scavenger, and 4) heat sealed without oxygen scavenger. Samples were stored at 23°C and evaluated for L. monocytogenes levels at 0, 24, 48, and 72 h. Initial levels (time 0) of L. monocytogenes were approximately 5.7 log CFU/cm[superscript]2 for steak and tenders. For kippered beef steak, there was no interaction among packaging treatments and storage times (P > 0.05) whereas, storage time was different (P <0.05). A 1 log reduction of L. monocytogenes was observed at 24 and 48 h at 23°C for all packaging treatments and a 2.1 log CFU/cm[superscript]2 reduction occurred at 72 h. A 1 log CFU/cm[superscript]2 reduction of L. monocytogenes was observed after 24 h of storage for turkey tenders for all packaging treatments. After 48 h of storage time turkey tenders showed >1 log CFU/cm [superscript]2 reduction of L. monocytogenes for all packaging treatments except for vacuum packaged where only 0.9 log CFU/cm[superscript]2 reduction was observed. Log reductions at 72 h for all packaging treatments for turkey tenders ranged from 1.5 to 2.2. Processors of kippered beef steak and turkey tenders could use vacuum, nitrogen-flushing, or heat sealed with an oxygen scavenger packaging methods and hold product 24 h prior to shipping to reduce potential L. monocytogenes numbers by ≥1 log. However, processors should be encouraged to hold packaged product a minimum of 72 h to enhance the margin of safety for L. monocytogenes control.en-US© the author. This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/snack sticksListeria monocytogenespackagingkippered beefturkeypost-lethalityThesisAgriculture, Food Science and Technology (0359)