A bacteriophage cocktail can efficiently reduce five important serotypes both on chicken skin and stainless steel.

is one of the most important zoonotic pathogens and is mostly transmitted through food of animal origin. Application of bacteriophages is a promising tool to biocontrol on both food and food contact surfaces. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of a six-phage cocktail for the reduction of Enteritidis and a mixture of five major serotypes (. Enteritidis, Typhimurium, Infantis, Paratyphi B, and Indiana) on chicken skin and stainless steel. A phage cocktail with a final concentration of 10 PFU/cm was sprayed on these surfaces. After adding the phage cocktail, the samples were incubated at RT (~23°C) for different periods of time. The phage cocktail caused a significant reduction of . Enteritidis and the mixed culture on chicken skin 30 min after phage addition, with 1.8 log and 1 log units, respectively. Reduction rates (1.2-1.7 log units) on stainless steel after 30 min were similar. Four hours after addition, the phage cocktail caused a significant reduction on both surfaces up to 3 log units on chicken skin and 2.4 log units on stainless steel. In a further experiment, bacteria added to stainless steel were not allowed to dry to simulate a fresh bacterial contamination. In this case, the bacterial count of . Enteritidis was reduced below the detection limit after 2 h. The results demonstrate that this phage cocktail has potential to be used in post-harvest applications to control contaminations.