Safety and quality of ready-to-eat dry fermented sausages subjected to E-beam radiation

The inactivation kinetics in the death of Listeria innocua NTC 11288 (more radioresistant than five different strains of Listeria monocytogenes) and Salmonella Enterica serovar Enteritidis and S. enterica serovar Typhimurium by E-beam irradiation has been studied in two types of vacuum-packed RTE dry fermented sausages (“salchichon” and “chorizo”) in order to optimize the sanitation treatment of these products. A treatment of 1.29 kGy was calculated to reach the food safety objective (FSO) according to the “zero tolerance” criterion for the three strains. No irradiation treatment was necessary to meet the 102 c.f.u./g microbiological criterion for L. monocytogenes. Dry fermented sausages treated with ⩽2 kGy had negligible sensory (appearance, odour and taste) modifications. Therefore, this treatment produces safe dry fermented sausages with similar sensory properties to the non-irradiated product.