A Wash of Ethyl Acetoacetate Reduces Externally Added Salmonella enterica on Tomatoes

The continuously high numbers of food-borne disease outbreaks document that current intervention techniques are not yet satisfactory. This study describes a novel wash for tomatoes that can be used as part of the food processing chain and is designed to prevent contamination with serovars of Salmonella enterica. The wash contains ethyl acetoacetate (EAA) at a concentration of 8% in H₂O. This wash reduced live bacterial counts (on Salmonella Shigella agar) of externally added S. Newport MDD14 by 2.3 log, counts of S. Typhimurium ATCC19585 by 1.5 log, and counts of S. Typhimurium FSL R6-0020 by 3.4 log. The naturally occurring background flora of the tomatoes was determined on plate count agar. The log reduction by EAA was 2.1. To mimic organic matter in the wash, we added 1% tomato homogenate to the 8% EAA solution. Prior to using the wash, the tomato homogenate was incubated with the EAA for 2 h. In the presence of the tomato homogenate, the log reductions were 2.4 log for S. Newport MDD14 and 3 log for S. Typhimurium FSL R6-0020. It seems like tomato homogenate did not reduce the efficacy of the EAA wash in the two S. enterica serovars tested. We propose the use of EAA as a wash for tomatoes to reduce bacterial counts of S. enterica well as naturally occurring background flora.