Assessment of Possible Application of an Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet for Shelf Life Extension of Fresh-Cut Salad

Ready-to-eat salads are very perishable with quality losses within 6–7 days, and the extension of their shelf life is still a challenge. In this work, an atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ) was applied for the surface decontamination of fresh-cut lettuce baby leaves. The APPJ antimicrobial efficiency on the natural microbiota and its impact on some physicochemical attributes of lettuce were evaluated as a function of the treatment duration (0–30 s). Then, the influence of plasma treatment on the salad shelf life was studied, following the growth of aerobic mesophilic bacteria in both untreated and plasma-treated samples during 9 days of storage at 4 °C, together with the plasma-induced changes in physicochemical parameters of lettuce leaves. The APPJ induced a fast (15 s) microbial decontamination (1.3 log(10) CFU/g) of the salad surface. Exposure time and salad-plasma plume distance were the parameters that substantially affected the microbial inactivation. APPJ treatment retarded bacterial growth during the refrigerated storage, as plasma-treated samples were noticeably less contaminated than the non-treated ones in the first 3–4 days. No significant effect were observed on electrolyte leakage, pH, and dry matter content in both the set up phase and the shelf life study.