-: So I'll just start with a introduction to myself.
So my name is Jayne Stratton,
and I'm a research assistant professor
in the Food Science department.
I've been with the university for a very long time.
And my role here is as a food safety microbiologist.
So I manage a service lab
that does testing for the food industry.
We test for pathogens, indicator organisms.
We do shelf life studies.
I also do acidified food reviews.
For anybody that's doing acidified foods,
I do that work as well.
So my colleague Dr. Bianchini and I have done a number
of workshops like this.
We also teach preventive controls for human food
and for animal food.
So we've kinda been a team over the years,
so it's been a real pleasure to work with her
on projects like this.
So we've set it up as basically three different topics.
Our first one is gonna be the overview
of reduced oxygen packaging.
And instead of saying reduced oxygen packaging
throughout all of our lectures, we're just gonna say ROP,
so that'll make things a little bit simpler.
And this is what I'll be covering in this first lecture,
and then I'll be covering the types of processes
that fall under the ROP category.
And then Dr. Bianchini is gonna be looking
at the safety concerns, particularly with the microbiology
of these types of processed foods.
So our first topics, we have an introduction.
So what is ROP, okay?
And then there's gonna be definitions related to that
and what the benefits are.
Why are people using this?
As we heard from one of the inspectors,
there's a lot of idle machines out there, okay,
and we need to get those running
because ROP is really a great process,
not only for certain types of cooking processes,
it can enhance flavor,
but also just to improve shelf life, okay.
And then we'll kinda cover a few misconceptions
and risks associated with ROP.
So this first lecture is gonna be fairly brief,
but I think it's gonna put us on the right track.
So what is ROP?
Pretty simple.
You have food.
You put it in a package.
You remove the oxygen.
And then you have a sealed product, okay.
Pretty simple, right?
Okay, well, it gets a little bit more complicated
as we go into some of those processes,
but essentially that's the basic concept.
So there's two definitions that we have to be aware of,
and the first one is the term aerobic, okay.
When we think of the word aerobic, what do we think of?
Exercise, right?
Aerobic exercise,
because you're breathing, bringing in oxygen.
So aerobic, that just means with air.
Okay, so aerobic conditions mean
that your product is in the air.
It's in the environment.
So you see a piece of meat here sitting on a cutting board,
maybe being processed, maybe being cooked.
So these are aerobic conditions, okay.
And as we'll find out, there are certain organisms
that like the aerobic conditions.
They need oxygen to reproduce.
The second definition is an anerobic condition.
So there's gonna be no oxygen in that environment, okay.
So we can see in this first picture,
somebody is placing these meat products into a bag,
probably to go into some type of a water bath cook process.
And then this last picture is a pretty good picture showing
that meat products that's been vacuum-sealed.
So you've pulled all of the oxygen
and the air out of that bag.
Okay, so that's an anerobic condition.
And as we'll see later on,
the anerobic condition is conducive
to certain microorganisms' growth.
Okay, they don't like air,
so they're perfectly happy growing
in these types of environments.
So the benefits of ROP,
I've talked about it a little bit already.
It prevents the growth of spoilage organisms.
So can anybody name some spoilage organisms?
Man In Class: Botulism.
-: Botulism, is that a spoilage organism?
Man In Class: I don't know.
-: Well, it makes you sick, right?
Mm-hmm.
What else might you see on food products that spoils it?
Woman In Class: The moisture.
-: What about that moldy cheese
in the back of your fridge? (laughs)
So mold.
What about that slimy green piece of meat
that you forgot about that's in the back of your fridge?
That's bacteria that causes that spoilage.
And then yeast.
Yeast can also spoil products as well.
One common thing with these spoilage organisms
is most all of 'em require oxygen.
Okay, so if you take the oxygen out, then you can,
that goes a long way
towards preventing something like mold growth.
Prolongs the quality, okay.
So in addition to preventing microorganisms from growing,
it can also reduce things like rancidity.
Okay, so oxidative rancidity.
If you have a product that's high in oils,
if there's a lot of oxygen in there,
then it can cause a rancid product.
So if you take out that oxygen,
then you can reduce that rancidity from occurring.
And then finally, all of these benefits
will extend the shelf life of the product.
So the benefits, again, I've mentioned,
prevention of spoilage organisms.
So you have a low oxygen environment.
Prevents the growth of aerobic bacteria, yeasts, and molds.
Here it shows some pictures of some moldy products.
Again, so our moldy cheese.
We have some mold growing on some strawberries.
So what spoilage organisms do,
in addition to just really looking really terrible,
is they can cause slime, texture changes, off odors.
So it's really a product that nobody's gonna wanna consume.
And this is just a summary slide
that talks about the different benefits of ROP processing.
So it's gonna prolong your quality
by reducing fat oxidation and rancidity,
prevent chemical reactions
that produce off odors and color change,
reduces aerobic bacterial growth,
and then eliminates the risk
of contamination during storage.
And it's gonna extend the shelf life.
So one of the things you're also doing
in addition to taking out the oxygen
is you're placing an airtight barrier over that product.
So that barrier or that film,
that's also gonna prevent other things
from getting in there,
like people's hands being able to move that product around.
You're not directly touching that product.
I like to think of insects too.
I mean, insects are everywhere,
but that product is protected by that seal,
that airtight package.
So why would you wanna use ROP in retail?
It's gonna reduce your preparation and clean-up times.
You can have portion control.
Sometimes there's a problem maybe making too much product.
How do you store it properly?
This way you can do individualized bags.
Less mess, fewer utensils, extends shelf life,
and then creates a tender or more flavorful food product.
So, for example, with the sous vide processing.
So misconceptions.
So let's read this statement.
Sealing food in vacuum packs eliminates the need
to handle it properly.
True or false?
Class: False.
-: False.
I'm so glad nobody said true. (laughs)
But sometimes you think about it,
when we go to the grocery store,
we see all of this beautiful product
that's beautifully packaged.
We kinda grab it and toss it into our basket, right?
Okay, we think that the packaging is,
we're attributing a lot more
to that packaging than we should.
So we really wanna make sure
that we're handling all of this product properly,
even though it looks like it's packaged.
One of the other things about ROP in particular is
that we have this issue of foodborne botulism,
which was brought up earlier.
When we're taking out oxygen in that package,
that means this particular organism, clostridium botulinum,
it's a perfect environment for that organism to grow, okay.
And we use refrigeration primarily
to prevent the organism from growing.
Okay, so this is a extremely dangerous organism.
And there have been some cases associated with ROP packages,
and I've added a couple of those here.
So this first one is a case in 2009.
It was an outbreak of botulism linked
to vacuum-packed hot-smoked whitefish in France, okay.
And then we have a table over here of incidents
of foodborne botulism with, involving C. botulinum.
So this table starts in 1982 and goes up to about 2004,
but what I really wanna point out in this table
is the factors contributing to the botulism outbreak.
So time after time,
you're seeing temperature abuse pop up, okay.
So even though you're vacuum-packaging,
you have a good seal,
everything is being done correctly on the process side,
you have to make sure that the temperature
of your holding temperatures
are not gonna be abusing that product.
Okay, so that's gonna be one important thing
to really note when you're doing this process.
And also any of you out there
making homemade fermented beaver tail and paw
or homemade beluga whale?
Just be careful, that made the list. (laughs)
okay, a couple more misconceptions and risks,
so a couple more outbreaks.
Not outbreaks, but these are recalls.
So the last thing if you're processing food
and it's going out to your consumers is you wanna recall it.
That's just a nightmare, right?
So in this first case,
we had a recall of smoked wild coho salmon,
and this was recalled for a botulism risk.
And if you note the date on that, that's 2018,
so it's a pretty recent occurrence.
And the problem with this is it was a low salt,
vacuum-packed fish.
And on the label,
it said you could refrigerate it or freeze it.
Well, according to the rules,
low salt fish has to be kept frozen until use.
Okay, so that's why they had to do this recall.
There's a potential of one type of clostridium
that can grow at the lower temperatures,
okay, and it's especially associated with fish.
So it was a high-risk product,
and it needed to be kept frozen until use.
In this other case, the title up here says,
"Illinois Firm Recalls Chicken Products Produced
"Without Adequate Ready-To-Eat HACCP Plan
"and a Listeria Monocytogenes Program."
And the problem with this is they were doing fully cooked,
vacuum-packed chicken tamales,
but they were processing without a HACCP plan.
Okay, and they needed to have a HACCP plan
in order to produce this product, so they had to recall it.
So again, when we get into the regulatory part,
it's gonna be very important to comply
with some of these items,
like making sure you have a HACCP plan.
So just to summarize.
So with the misconceptions and risks,
you need to store frozen food in the freeze,
thaw in appropriate manner.
The vacuum seal is not gonna kill bacteria.
And the vacuum packaging does not
automatically make food safe
and eliminate that need to take precautions, okay.
So it's gonna be important
to maintain vigilance in food safety
when you're producing these types of products, okay.
So that finishes out our overview,
next, we'll switch over
and go over some of the processes that we use.