A new wax coating technology for produce could provide enhanced protection against foodborne pathogens, according to new research publishd in Current Research in Food Science.
The idea was the brainstorm of Mustafa Akbulut, PhD, a professor in the department of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University in College Station, who teamed Luis Cisneros-Zevallos, PhD, a professor in the department of horticultural sciences at the same institution, to design longer-lasting and bacteria-free produce.
“Our collaborative research group combining cutting-edge engineering, food science, and horticulture science is actively engaged in developing new ideas to address issues related to food safety and shelf life,” Dr. Akbulut tells Food Quality & Safety. “In this work, we want to improve the wax that is already applied to many fruits and vegetables in order to enhance their cosmetics and reduce evaporative losses.”
Since a wax coating is already applied to produce, the team looked for a way to make food waxes more functional and beneficial to maximize their potential. “We wanted to create food waxes that have active and passive protection mechanisms against foodborne pathogens and spoilage microorganisms,” Dr. Akbulut says.
The need for this technology has several elements. First, food spoilage is an enormous burden to national economies worldwide. Even increasing the shelf-life of produce by one day can account for huge sums. This is important for sustainability and minimizing waste.
“Additionally, most food industry processes rely on sanitizers in the facility,” Dr. Akbulut says. “Usually, there is no protection after the food commodity leaves the facility. For instance, during transportation and display on grocery shelves, there are ample opportunities for bacterial contamination. At this point, let us imagine multiple people touching and selecting a food commodity from display shelves. Having a strategy to actively protect the food commodity even after it is sanitized and removed from the facility is extremely important.”
The new wax coating technology uses nano-encapsulated essential oils that are evenly distributed in food-grade wax. “The key is to design encapsulation systems that are compatible with the wax materials and can gradually release their contents,” Dr. Akbulut adds. “This method can extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables by providing a sustained release of bioactive compounds.”
To date, the team have tested the coating against E. coli O157:H7 and S. aureus, demonstrating the product’s effectiveness against common contamination risks.
“It is a conformal coating,” he says. “It can be used for any produce as long as the produce is not very fragile or delicate. It can be commonly applied to many fruits and vegetables, including apples, stone fruits, citrus fruits, cucumbers, bell peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes. These are the starting products. Obviously, commodities more frequent association with foodborne outbreaks can benefit more from this technology.”
He believes that utilizing smarter protective wax coatings can directly translate to performance advantages in the marketplace and is a game changer for the produce industry because it can provide continuous protection of the food commodity even after it leaves the packing/grading facility; growers are already applying wax, so adding functional additives allows them to get additional benefits without major changes to operations; and, the produce will last longer.
The next steps for this technology are to apply it at a production scale to identify and resolve any scaling up issues in translating from lab bench prototypes to commercial packing line implementation. “Our eventual hope is to see this technology broadly implemented across a wide variety of fresh produce,” Dr. Akbulut says. “This would make the produce supply safer while extending shelf life to support sustainability efforts on a global scale by reducing food waste.”
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