Soft drinks and fruit juices represent an important market within the food industry. The increasing variety of products being released at a bewildering rate has altered the potential for spoilage problems. Soft drinks are generally nutrientpoor media that are spoiled by relatively few organisms – usually yeasts, and a few acid-tolerant bacteria and fungi. Carbonation shifts the spoilage flora t...

The spoilage potential of eight bacterial groups/species (Serratia spp., Hafnia alvei, Brochothrix thermosphacta, Carnobacterium maltaromaticum, Shewanella baltica, Lactococcus piscium, Photobacterium phosphoreum, "other Enterobacteriaceae" [containing one strain of Moellerella sp., Morganella sp. and Pectobacterium sp.]) isolated from spoiled raw salmon fillets stored under modified atmosphere...

ARTICLES SUMMARY Predictive microbiology and quantitative microbial risk assessment are rapidly developing disciplines that use mathematical models to quantitatively estimate the presence and growth of microbes in food products. This report explains how these techniques were used in troubleshooting a milk spoilage problem. The central objective of this article is to demonstrate the concept and ...

The yeast Williopsis mrakii produces a mycocin or yeast killer toxin designated HMK; this toxin exhibits high thermal stability, high pH stability, and a broad spectrum of activity against other yeasts. We describe construction of a synthetic gene for mycocin HMK and heterologous expression of this toxin in Aspergillus niger. Mycocin HMK was fused to a glucoamylase protein carrier, which result...

The spoilage yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae degraded the food preservative sorbic acid (2,4-hexadienoic acid) to a volatile hydrocarbon, identified by gas chromatography mass spectrometry as 1,3-pentadiene. The gene responsible was identified as PAD1, previously associated with the decarboxylation of the aromatic carboxylic acids cinnamic acid, ferulic acid, and coumaric acid to styrene, 4-viny...

Recent evidence suggests that Lactobacillus buchneri may play an important role in spoilage-associated secondary fermentation of cucumbers. Lactic acid degradation during fermented cucumber spoilage is influenced by sodium chloride (NaCl) concentration, pH, and presence of oxygen. Objectives were to evaluate these factors on lactic acid utilization by L. buchneri, and to compare the biochemical...

Lactobacillus sakei subsp. carnosus was predominant in the spoilage flora of sliced, vacuum-packed, smoked, oven-cooked turkey breast fillets which developed mild, sour spoilage flavors after 4 weeks storage at 4 degrees C. In contrast, Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. mesenteroides predominated in the spoilage flora of sliced, vacuum-packed, unsmoked, boiled turkey breast fillets from the same...

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) associated with gaseous spoilage of modified-atmosphere-packaged, raw, tomato-marinated broiler meat strips were identified on the basis of a restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) (ribotyping) database containing DNAs coding for 16S and 23S rRNAs (rDNAs). A mixed LAB population dominated by a Leuconostoc species resembling Leuconostoc gelidum caused the spoi...

Spoilage characterised by bulging of lids and gas formation affected various product lots of different marinated herring types. Microbiological analyses resulted in growth on MRS and Rogosa SL agar. Altogether, 206 randomly selected colonies from two unspoiled and ten spoiled samples were characterised using phenotypical key tests and a 16 + 23S rRNA gene-based RFLP identification database. L. ...

Bacterial communication signals, acylated homoserine lactones (AHLs), were extracted from samples of commercial bean sprouts undergoing soft-rot spoilage. Bean sprouts produced in the laboratory did not undergo soft-rot spoilage and did not contain AHLs or AHL-producing bacteria, although the bacterial population reached levels similar to those in the commercial sprouts, 10(8) to 10(9) CFU/g. A...