inoculum (strictly broth-grown cells). This die-off of Salmonella
cells soon after inoculation in dry products was attributed to osmotic
shock effect as the cells were not pre-exposed or adapted to
dry conditions. Therefore, in order to avoid this issue with inoculum
and also to recover higher number of cells immediately after
inoculation in the test products, a dry inoculum and inoculation
technique was used (Blessington et al., 2013). Dry sand was inoculated
with Salmonella cells collected from agar-lawn (adapted to
survive in a dry environment) then air dried, and later used as dry
inoculum for chicken flavor bases. This dry sand inoculum is
analogous to contaminated dry food products such as dry pepper
and HVP in which Salmonella cells exist in desiccated form.
Two replications of the following experiment were carried out
to evaluate the survival of Salmonella populations in inoculated dry
sand. Sand was inoculated to provide a Salmonella population of
9.2 ± 0.3 log CFU/g (Fig. 1). After 24 h of air drying, the counts
decreased to 8.2 ± 0.3 log CFU/g. The dried sand inoculum had
moisture content of