21 Mar 2013 New natural weapon in war against salmonella
The poultry and meat industries are always looking for new and innovative advances in science and technology in battling salmonella — and an American biotech company has come up with a new spray-on solution that has just been confirmed GRAS by the US FDA.
Intralytix, a biotechnology company that focuses on producing and marketing bacteriophage-based products to control bacterial pathogens in environmental, food processing and medical settings, has developed SalmoFresh, whose active ingredients seek out and kill salmonella. This includes strains belonging to the most common, highly pathogenic variations of the bacteria, including Salmonella Heidelberg, Typhimurium, Enteritidis, Newport, Hadar, Kentucky and Thompson.
According to a company press release, SalmoFresh is specifically designed for foods that are at a high risk for salmonella contamination. Red meat and poultry in particular can be treated before grinding for significant reductions in salmonella contamination. In the case of poultry, SalmoFresh can be sprayed on the cut-up parts as they go through the line — before they’re ground up.
The company’s chief scientist, Alexander Sulakvelidze, says that GRAS recognition will allow SalmoFresh to be put into immediate use by the food processing industry as “a safe and effective approach for reducing the risk of foodborne salmonellosis”.
“We’ve shown the FDA that it works well,” company CEO John Woloszyn told Food Safety News, referring to the voluminous information and test results the company filed with the agency when it petitioned for GRAS status. “When the FDA acknowledges that a product is GRAS, customers feel more confident about it.”
SalmoFresh is all natural, kosher and halaal. Woloszyn said that in the near future, it is expected to to be included in the Organic Materials Review Institute listing (OMRI), a status that another Intralytix product, ListShield, which fights against Listeria, already enjoys.
Although the company hasn’t recruited any customers yet, Woloszyn said that potential customers who are currently doing experiments with the product in their labs are reporting good results — that it’s very effective against Salmonella.
“There’s a great deal of enthusiasm about it,” he said, adding that testing generally takes several months.
Describing other advantages of the product, Woloszyn said that unlike irradiation, pressurisation or chlorine washes, SalmoFresh doesn’t affect the colour, taste, texture or odour of the poultry.
“It’s 100 percent natural,” he said.
As for cost, Woloszyn said that for processors, the advantage of using SalmoFresh is that it’s less expensive and far easier to use than technologies such as radiation and pressurisation. And because it’s applied as a fine mist as the meat goes through the line, there’s no need for highly specialised equipment. All it takes is some nozzles and equipment, most of which is already available in most processing facilities.
He estimates the cost at 1 to 2 US cents a half kilo, depending on the product.
How does it work?
Bacteriophages, also known as phages, are the active ingredients in SalmoFresh and Intralytix’s other food safety products. Phages as naturally occurring viruses that can be very effective in killing bacteria. They are everywhere, inside of us, on our skin, in the soil, inside and on the outside of plants and animals, and even in the ocean. They do their work by going after specific targeted bacteria, infecting and then killing them.
As for SalmoFresh, the product “will significantly reduce levels of Salmonella, with as much as a 95-100 percent reduction in some cases,” according to Woloszyn.
In describing the strategy these phages use, Woloszyn said they attack the pathogen and inject their DNA into it. Once the daughter cells, which develop inside the bacteria, are ready, they break open the cell wall and go in search of more pathogens to attack.
Woloszyn said that before the advent of antibiotics, phage therapy was used against a range of human diseases with varying results. However, with the growth of antibiotic resistance, phage biotechnology is now being viewed as an alternative to antibiotics, in some cases.
Here’s a video about the product:
{youtube}fFoo1OVa11E{/youtube}
Intralytix: Read more