Decontamination of dried whole black peppercorns using ultraviolet-c irradiation.

This study determined the efficacy of UV-C as a decontamination process against some foodborne bacteria in dried whole black peppercorns. Artificially-inoculated Salmonella enterica, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Staphylococcus aureus were subjected to UV-C with a surface irradiance of 0.43 mW/cm and were all found to exhibit a biphasic inactivation pattern with fast log-linear inactivation followed by a tail.