Thermal Death Kinetics of Three Representative Salmonella enterica Strains in Toasted Oats Cereal

Several reports have indicated that the thermal tolerance of Salmonella at low-water activity increases significantly, but information on the impact of diverse food matrices is still scarce. The goal of this research was to determine the kinetic parameters (decimal reduction time, D; time required for the first decimal reduction, δ) of thermal resistance of Salmonella in a previously cooked low water activity food. Commercial toasted oats cereal (TOC) was used as the food model, with or without sucrose (25%) addition. TOC samples were inoculated with 10(8) CFU/mL of a single strain of one of three Salmonella serovars (Agona, Tennessee, Typhimurium). TOC samples were ground and equilibrated to a(w) values of 0.11, 0.33 and 0.53, respectively. Ground TOC was heated at temperatures between 65 °C and 105 °C and viable counts were determined over time (depending on the temperature for up to 6 h). Death kinetic parameters were determined using linear and Weibull regression models. More than 70% of Weibull’s adjusted regression coefficients ([Formula: see text]) and only 38% of the linear model’s [Formula: see text] had values greater than 0.8. For all serovars, both D and δ values increased consistently at a 0.11 a(w) compared to 0.33 and 0.53. At 0.33 a(w), the δ values for Typhimurium, Tennessee and Agona were 0.55, 1.01 and 2.87, respectively, at 85 °C, but these values increased to 65, 105 and 64 min, respectively, at 0.11 a(w). At 100 °C, δ values were 0.9, 5.5 and 2.3 min, respectively, at 0.11 a(w). The addition of sucrose resulted in a consistent reduction of eight out of nine δ values determined at 0.11 a(w) at 85, 95 and 100 °C, but this trend was not consistent at 0.33 and 0.53 a(w). The Z values (increase of temperature required to decrease δ-value one log) were determined with modified δ values for a fixed β (a fitting parameter that describes the shape of the curve), and ranged between 8.9 °C and 13.4 °C; they were not influenced by a(w), strain or sugar content. These findings indicated that in TOC, high thermal tolerance was consistent among serovars and thermal tolerance was inversely dependent on a(w).