Study Shows Significant Reduction of Foodborne Illness Risk in Leafy Greens with SmartWash Boost™ Pretreatment

Study Shows Significant Reduction of Foodborne Illness Risk in Leafy Greens with SmartWash Boost Pretreatment

SmartWash Solutions®, a produce industry leader in fresh cut food safety, continues to provide revolutionary advancements to mitigate foodborne illness risk. A recent study presented by the USDA-ARS has shown the company’s SmartWash Boost™ product, a process aid used to pretreat iceberg and romaine lettuces prior to washing, increases lethality and accelerates the death of E. coli during cold storage. This pretreatment combines Pure BioSciences’ Silver Dihydrogen Citrate (SDC) technology and SmartWash Solutions chemistry to "boost" established free chlorine wash process lethality and increase E. coli die-off by more than 0.7 log.

"The fully integrated Boost control system can be added on to any standard wash system. This novel application and chemistry have been used commercially and is available to the fresh cut market today," said Steven Swarts, director of business development at SmartWash Solutions. "This tool provides the additional incremental lethality needed to drastically reduce the potential for foodborne illness when coupled with SmartWash Solutions’ industry-leading wash system’s cross contamination control. This is a huge win for companies seeking to prevent recalls, protect their brand and assure consumer trust and safety."

At the end of October, SmartWash Solutions entered the next stage in launching this product, as research findings were shared by the USDA-ARS team as a scientific poster at the 2020 International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) annual meeting. "We have spent hundreds of hours working in our pilot plant to design the best wash system for cut products. We are excited to receive third party results that reinforce our internal studies, proving significant incremental lethality in the process," Swarts added. This report from the USDA evaluates the efficacy of the new pretreatment process and solution, SmartWash Boost™. The technical details are available in the links below:

To find out more about the SmartWash process control solutions and service, visit smartwashsolutions.com or call (831) 676-9750.

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