Driven by consumer preference for natural or clean-label products, shelf-life-extending ingredients that are growing continue to be natural or clean-label ingredients.
The three main components of pre-harvest intervention — probiotics and prebiotics in animal feed, pathogen resistance through vaccines or antimicrobials, and biosecurity protocols — all work together to reduce foodborne pathogens in beef, poultry and pork. Each operation, however, has to tinker with the formula to create its ideal solution.
Processors continue to increase the use of natural antimicrobial ingredients as they move toward cleaner labels. Identifying these natural compounds or groups of compounds that function singularly or together to be effective as antimicrobial systems in their products remains a top development area for them, says Jeff Sindelar, extension meat specialist and associate professor in Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Several years ago, leaders in the meat-processing industry joined a food safety consortium exploring the possibilities of electrostatics as applied in antimicrobial intervention.
Antimicrobial dips and sprays are aiding processors in achieving food-safety goals from animal harvest all the way through various points of processing, including fresh-cut products.
The biggest change occurring with antimicrobial ingredients is the increased use of natural antimicrobials, especially in the formulation of cured products.