This project constitutes a comprehensive research effort to enhance seafood safety, with special emphasis on catfish. This goal will be accomplished through: 1) developing robust foodborne pathogen growth models to aid risk assessors in regulatory agencies in science-based policy decisions, 2) developing effective intervention technologies, and 3) enhance or, at the minimum, preserve seafood-quality.

Technologies currently available for use by the seafood processing industry fall short of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) target of a 5 log reduction of foodborne pathogens for protecting the health of consumers. Many of the intervention technologies currently available provide only a 0.5 to 3 log reduction of harmful bacteria.

Information on the use of multiple technologies to obtain incremental improvements in microbial inactivation, the so-called hurdle approach, will be developed to improve the safety and shelf-life of seafood. Combined technologies will be evaluated for additive and synergistic effects.

Physical intervention technologies to be investigated include flash pasteurization, pulsed and ultraviolet light, and ionizing (gamma) irradiation. Chemical intervention technologies will include acidified electrolyzed water, modified atmosphere packaging, and GRAS food additives, which are approved by the U.S. FDA Office of Food Additive Safety. Food quality evaluation, studies will be conducted on the seafood subjected to various intervention methods to identify those technologies, which in addition to being effective in inactivating pathogens, are simultaneously neutral or even improve product quality.

The use of novel single and hurdle technologies coupled with improved risk assessment of contamination will greatly improve the safety of seafood, and will reduce the incidence of foodborne illness associated with its consumption.