Nonpasteurized orange juice is manufactured by squeezing juice from fruit without peel removal. Fruit surfaces may carry pathogenic microorganisms that can contaminate squeezed juice. Titanium dioxide–UVC photocatalysis (TUVP), a nonthermal technique capable of microbial inactivation via generation of hydroxyl radicals, was used to decontaminate orange surfaces. Levels of spot-inoculated Escherichia coli O157:H7 (initial level of 7.0 log CFU/cm2) on oranges (12 cm2) were reduced by 4.3 log CFU/ml when treated with TUVP (17.2 mW/cm2). Reductions of 1.5, 3.9, and 3.6 log CFU/ml were achieved using tap water, chlorine (200 ppm), and UVC alone (23.7 mW/cm2), respectively. E. coli O157:H7 in juice from TUVP (17.2 mW/cm2)–treated oranges was reduced by 1.7 log CFU/ml. After orange juice was treated with high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) at 400 MPa for 1 min without any prior fruit surface disinfection, the level of E. coli O157:H7 was reduced by 2.4 log CFU/ml. However, the E. coli O157:H7 level in juice was reduced by 4.7 log CFU/ml (to lower than the detection limit) when TUVP treatment of oranges was followed by HHP treatment of juice, indicating a synergistic inactivation effect. The inactivation kinetics of E. coli O157:H7 on orange surfaces followed a biphasic model. HHP treatment did not affect the pH, °Brix, or color of juice. However, the ascorbic acid concentration and pectinmethylesterase activity were reduced by 35.1 and 34.7%, respectively.
Inactivation of Escherichia coli K12 in phosphate buffer saline and orange juice by high hydrostatic pressure processing combined with freezing
