The effectiveness of UV-C light treatments on microbial load and quality of fresh-cut pineapple sticks was
studied. At all tested fluencies (200e4800 J/m2), UV-C light did not decrease the initial microbial load of
pineapple sticks. Nevertheless, pineapple sticks submitted to 200 J/m2 UV-C light, packaged in conventional
PET/EVOH/PE trays and stored at 6 C up to 15 days showed slower yeast and lactic acid
bacteria growth. In these samples, microbial counts were generally 2 log cycles lower that those observed
in the untreated sticks. UV-C light did not promote changes in colour and increased consumer preference.
Similar results were also obtained when UV-C light treatment was applied on pineapple sticks
previously packaged in highly UV-C light transparent PA/PE pouches to avoid post treatment
contamination.