Sterilization of food packaging by UV-C irradiation: Is Aspergillus brasiliensis ATCC 16404 the best target microorganism for industrial bio-validations?

In food industries UV-C irradiation is used to achieve decontamination of some packaging devices, such as plastic caps or laminated foils, and of those smooth surfaces that can be directly irradiated. Since its effectiveness can be checked by microbial validation tests, some ascospore-forming molds (Aspergillus hiratsukae, Talaromyces bacillisporus, Aspergillus montevidensis, and Chaetomium globosum) were compared with one of the target microorganisms actually used in industrial bio-validations (Aspergillus brasiliensis ATCC 16404) to find the species most resistant to UV-C. Tests were carried out with an UV-C lamp (irradiance = 127 μW/cm; emission peak = 253.

Effect of peracetic acid on ascospore-forming molds and test microorganisms used for bio-validations of sanitizing processes in food plants.

Industrial sterilization of packaging and filling machineries by peracetic acid (PAA) is a widespread practice. In our study we assessed the resistance to PAA of three ascospore-forming molds (Chaetomium globosum ATCC 6205; Talaromyces bacillisporus SSICA 10915; Aspergillus hiratsukae SSICA 3913) compared to that of Aspergillus brasiliensis ATCC 16404 and Bacillus atrophaeus DSM 675, that are currently used as test microorganisms during industrial bio-validations of food packaging and machineries. Tests were carried out at 40 °C using 1,000 mg/l of PAA, with or without a supporting material (aluminium, tin-plate, PET).

Sanitization of packaging and machineries in the food industry: Effect of hydrogen peroxide on ascospores and conidia of filamentous fungi.

In the food industry, sterilization of packaging and filling machines by hydrogen peroxide (HP) is a widespread practice. Its effectiveness is usually tested by means of inactivation tests on selected test microorganisms that were any case chosen without taking into account that food products could be also spoiled by microorganisms presumably resistant to HP. For this reason, the aim of this work was to assess the resistance of different ascospore-forming moulds (Talaromyces bacillisporus, Aspergillus hiratsukae, Chaetomium globosum) to HP, in order to find the most resistant to this kind of chemical stress, and to compare their resistance with that registered for other moulds, including test microorganism Aspergillus brasiliensis ATCC 16404.