Impact of Temporary Storage Orientation on Commensal Bacteria and Sanitizing Programs on Survivability of Listeria innocua on Food Contact Surfaces in Retail Deli Settings

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of temporary storage orientation on commensal bacterial populations and sanitizing programs on survivability of Listeria innocua on food contact surfaces in retail deli settings. For trial 1, when looking only at salami, the face orientation resulted in higher contamination levels compared to the butt (P ≤ 0.05). When looking only at turkey, there was no significant difference in microbial growth populations of both orientations (P ≥ 0.05). For trial 2, When looking at both turkey and salami samples, there was no significant difference in microbial growth levels after the cleaning and sanitizing and sanitizing only treatments were applied (P ≥ 0.05) However, there was at least a 3-log reduction of the turkey and a 5-log reduction of the salami compared to the control. Overall, the current study concluded that the effect of the treatment orientation of ready-to-eat (RTE) meat on microbial contamination varies depending on meat product type. Additionally, both cleaning programs were equally as effective in reducing microbial growth on food contact surfaces in retail deli settings.