The recent U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act (Food Safety Act)
established minimum standards for the safe production and harvesting
of fruits and vegetables, based on known safety risks (US-FDA, United
States Food and Drug Administration, 2011). Each registered food processing
or packing facility/plant is required to conduct a hazard evaluation
to identify “known or reasonably foreseeable hazards,” including
“biological” hazards. Each registered facility is then required to implement
preventive controls or provide assurances that the identified hazards
will be significantly minimized or prevented. Currently, almost all
fresh fruit and vegetable facilities utilize aqueous sanitizers to wash
fresh fruits and vegetables. Chlorine (viz., NaOCl) is the most widely
used sanitizing agent for fresh produce despite chlorine's limited