Non-typhoidal salmonellae are among the most important foodborne pathogens and can
cause gastroenteritis, bacteremia and subsequent focal infection (Hohmann, 2001). Scallan et al.
(2011) estimated there are over 9 million foodborne illnesses in the United States annually;
about a million of these cases are caused by non-typhoidal Salmonella spp. Based on this
estimate, about twenty thousand people are hospitalized and 378 die annually due to non49
typhoidal Salmonella spp. People believe that low water activity (aw) foods are free from
contamination with Salmonella because the optimum aw for growth of Salmonella is 0.99 (Mattick et al., 2000). However, several incidents of Salmonella contamination of low aw food