Reducing Salmonella in meat products by 90%

Assistant Professor Amilton de Mello, from the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources at the University of Nevada, Reno, presented his research at the international American Meat Science Association’s conference.

Salmonella reduction in ground poultry

“We were able to reduce salmonella by as much as 90% in ground poultry, ground pork and ground beef,” de Mello reported. “We’re excited to be able to show such good results, food safety is an important part of our work and salmonella is one of the most prevalent bacteria in the nation’s food supply.”

De Mello’s research treated meat products infected with 4 types of salmonella by applying Myoviridae bacteriophages during mixing. Bacteriophages are commonly found in our environment. They are viruses that can only harm specific bacterial cells and are harmless to humans, animals and plants.

Experiments on inoculated meat

In the experiments, the salmonella bacteria was inoculated on refrigerated meat and poultry trim, then the treatment was applied to the meat before grinding. The bacteriophages invaded the cells of the bacteria and destroyed them.

“On the final ground meat products, there was a 10-fold decrease of salmonella,” de Mello said. “The results are very encouraging and we’re hoping this can be adopted by the meat industry to increase food safety.”

De Mello was invited to speak about his research at the 69^th Annual AMSA Reciprocal Meat Conference in San Angelo, Texas. Overall, his research focuses on positively impacting meat industry operations, production costs, meat quality attributes and animal welfare.