Collaborative project: Quality and safety in the production chain of organically produced ready-to-eat salads. Coordination (SafeSalad)

Project

Project code: 2811OE097
Contract period: 15.03.2012 - 14.03.2015
Budget: 232,401 Euro
Purpose of research: Applied research

There is an increasing demand for ready-to-eat salads from organic production with shelf-life and quality parameters comparable to those of their conventional equivalents. However, the production of safe and high quality products is more complex and difficult in an organic production chain. Organic fertilization and irrigation with surface water are potential hazards for contamination of the raw material with human pathogens. Consequently, as a holistic approach, not only field production but also harvest, transport, processing and packaging need to be thoroughly analyzed. This is also important, because only poor knowledge exists about the numerous feed-forward and feed-back processes with respect to quality in the chain. Thus, the first group of the Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH) will conduct on-farm experiments to evaluate agronomic and sensory quality parameters. The investigation will include iceberg lettuce, Swiss chard and rocket salad. Different fertilizers and irrigation measures as well as different mulches will be applied. A model will be developed quantifying the risks of production measures regarding produce contamination and quality and including the effects of the different interventions. The second group of the LUH will analyze plant material from these experiments and from an experiment with a non-pathogenic E. coli strain to quantify plant contamination and internalisation of human pathogens. The latter data will be replenished by laboratory experiments. The group of Hohenheim University will process the plant material from the field experiments on pilot-plant scale. For water saving reasons, to avoid cross infection and increase shelf life, innovative technological measures such as water-jet cutting will be applied during processing, and the effects on product microbiology, sensory quality and further intrinsic parameters determining product quality will be monitored during processing and storage.

show more show less

Section overview