Recent Foundation Research Findings
Reducing Salmonella serotypes on Chicken Carcasses by Sodium Bisulfate (SBS) and Investigation into its Reuse to Reduce Water Consumption, University of Arkansas

This project tackled two issues associated with food safety and the poultry industry, namely the need for alternative acidifiers for poultry carcass treatment and the ability to generate safe poultry processing re-use water.  To test the use of SBS as a sanitizer for chicken meat, investigators applied SBS at different concentrations and tested it against S. Enteritidis-inoculated drum sticks.  Drumsticks were selected over carcasses because of industry feedback indicating greater interest in parts rather than carcasses for assessment of alternative sanitizers.  This approach also allowed investigators to more easily expand the number of treatments compared within a specific trial.  Research demonstrated that three percent SBS reduced S. Enteritidis over three days of storage and did not alter appearance of drumsticks after soaking.

The re-use of water by poultry plants is increasingly important given the cost associated with the production of potable water and environmental concerns in arid regions.  Therefore, it is essential to develop cost-effective strategies to better utilize re-use water and decrease the bacterial load prior to re-use.  Research demonstrated in this project that SBS was very effective in dramatically decreasing Salmonella Typhimurium inoculated into commercial re-use water and therefore could be used as an antimicrobial when recycling poultry processing water for reuse in processing.

The article and others are available in the January 2019 Foundation Focus Newsletter