Biological Engineering Colloquium Seminar to Feature Subbiah

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Jeyamkondan Subbiah

The Department of Biological Engineering will host a presentation from Jeyamkondan Subbiah, professor and department head of the Department of Food Science Friday, Oct. 18.

Subbiah will discuss ways to improve the safety of low-moisture foods like nuts, spreads, spices and ingredients.

The seminar will take place from 10:45-11:45 a.m. in room 219 of John A. White Jr. Engineering Hall.

The presentation is free and open to the public.

The abstract:

Process validation of microbial intervention technologies for improving safety of low moisture foods.

The reputation of low-moisture foods (LMF) as safe foods has been crumbling over the past decade due to the repeated involvement of LMF in foodborne illness outbreaks all over the U.S., be it as nuts, spreads, spices, and ingredients. Unfortunately, traditional heat pasteurization processes are not sufficient: most pathogens, including salmonella, show increased heat tolerance in dry environments. New food safety regulations such as Food Safety Modernization Act requires processors to validate all intervention processing technologies. This presentation will describe validation of a novel processing technology (radio-frequency processing) and a legacy processing technology (extrusion) as lethality step for improving safety of low-moisture foods.