Post-packaging pasteurization offers a multitude of benefits for processors in the meat and poultry industry. The primary reason that post-packaging pasteurization has been used in the meat industry is to eliminate Listeria monocytogenes from the surface of ready-to-eat meat products, which have been exposed to the environment between the cooking and packaging processes, i.e., post-lethality contamination, says Lynn Knipe, an extension processed meats specialist and associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at Ohio State University in Columbus.
Exposure refers to removing the casing or packaging film from a product after cooking, but before packaging. For some products, such as turkey breasts, post-packaging pasteurization might allow for processors to produce a safe ready-to-eat product, without adding nitrites, lactates, diacetates or other antimicrobial agents to the product, resulting in a cleaner labeled product, Knipe explains. Read the rest here.
