Temporal pattern of microbial indicators of ready-to-eat rocket salads during shelf life.

INTRODUCTION: From 2001-2009 there have been numerous community alerts and notifications about the rocket salad produced in Italy and distributed in Europe. Our study describes the evolution of the microbial quality of ready to eat rocket salad during shelf life among three different Italian producers. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Total Mesophilic Count (TMC) and Escherichia coli (EC) count were measured in 248 samples. We used Wilcoxon test to compare the median values of TMC and EC counts and Kruskal Wallis test to compare the producers. RESULTS: The TMC and EC values differed among producers at the stages of raw material and in the finished product (Kruskall Wallis test, p < 0.05). The evolution of bacterial charges had significant differences among producers at expiration date (Wilcoxon test, p < 0.05). More than half of the samples (54.8%) exceed reference standard for TMC after 48 h from packaging. CONCLUSION: Differences among producers may linked to the different minimal processing technologies adopted after harvesting.

Ready-to-eat vegetables production with low-level water chlorination. An evaluation of water quality, and of its impact on end products.

INTRODUCTION: We evaluated the microbiological impact of low-level chlorination (1 ppm free chlorine) on the production of ready-to-eat (RTE) vegetables by monitoring the microbiological quality of irrigation and processing water in two production plants over a 4-season period, as well as the microbiological quality of unprocessed vegetables and RTE product. Water samples were also characterized in terms of some chemical and physico-chemical parameters of relevance in chlorination management. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Both producers use water with maximum 1 ppm free chlorine for vegetables rinsing, while the two processes differ by the number of washing cycles. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Salmonella spp and Campylobacter spp were detected once in two different irrigation water samples out of nine from one producer. No pathogens were found in the vegetable samples. As expected, the procedure encompassing more washing cycles performed slightly better in terms of total mesophilic count (TMC) when comparing unprocessed and RTE vegetables of the same batch. However, data suggest that low-level chlorination may be insufficient in preventing microbial build-up in the washing equipment and/or batch-to batch cross-contamination.

[Model for microbiological surveillance of operating rooms: analysis of the efficacy of total mesophilic load and air particle counts]. / Modello di sorveglianza igienico sanitaria in sala operatoria: analisi di efficacia della carica mesofila totale e del particolato aerodisperso.

Methodologies and procedures for environmental hygiene surveillance of operating room theatres are not uniform across Italy. The aim of this study was to implement a surveillance model based on total mesophilic load and particle count, and evaluating the model's efficacy and sensitivity. The surveillance model was introduced in 2008 for the evaluation of hygienic-sanitary conditions of seven operating theatres in two hospitals in Rome (Italy). In total 924 samples were tested. The correlation between total mesophilic load and particle count seem to indicate the efficacy of this model, although the two indicators appear to be complementary and cannot substitute one another.