Due to cocoa being considered a possible source of Salmonella contamination in chocolate, the behavior of Salmonella
during some cocoa pre-processing stages (fermentation, drying and storage) was investigated. The fermentation
process was carried out on a pilot scale (2 kg beans/box) for 7 days. Every day a fermentation box was inoculated
with a Salmonella pool (ca. 4 log MPN/g). The results showed that Salmonella did not affect (P N 0.05) the growth
of themainmicroorganism groups involved in cocoa fermentation. On the other hand, the pathogen was influenced
(Pb 0.05) by yeast, acetic acid bacteria and pH. In spite of Salmonella showing counts ≤1logMPN/g in the first days,
at the end of fermentation it grew in all samples, reaching counts as high as 7.49 logMPN/g. For drying and storage,
cocoa beans were inoculated during the fermentation (experiment A) or during the drying (experiment B). In these
stages the decline of the water activity affected the pathogen behavior. In experiment A during the drying,
Salmonella count increased in most of the samples. In experiment B either a slight growth or no growth in the
samples inoculated up to 48 h was observed, whereas the other samples showed reductions from the initial
count. After 30 days of storage at room temperature, the water activity decreased to 0.68, and reductions of
Salmonella ranged from0.93 to 2.52logMPN/g. Despite the reductions observed during the storage, the pathogen
was detected even after 120 days. Therefore, the results showed that Salmonella growth or survival depends
on when the contamination occurs.