In the last decade, PL was widely applied to the surface
decontamination of several types of fruits and vegetables, but no
data are available neither on green beans decontamination nor on
PL decontamination of coated food matrices. Therefore, comparison
of our results with previous reports cannot be straightforward.
The analysis of recent literature data shows that the reported
inactivation levels by PL treatments alone on fruits or vegetables
are similar to those observed for green beans. In particular, the
initial natural population of L. monocytogenes was reduced from
6.5 Log CFU/cm2 to 3.7 Log CFU/cm2 for a PL dose of 5.3 J/cm2, and
to 2.6 Log CFU/cm2 for a PL dose of 10.5 J/cm2 on apple slices
(Ignat et al., 2014). Similarly, the initial L. innocua populations
(6.7–6.8 Log CFU/g) inoculated on fresh-cut produces (avocadoes,
watermelons and button mushrooms) was reduced of about
2 Log CFU/g when exposed to PL at an energy dose of 1.2
105 J/m2
(Ramos-Villarroel et al., 2015). PL was also reported to reduce L.
innocua population on ready-to-eat sausages by 1.4 Log CFU/g after
exposure at an energy dose of 9.4
104 J/m2 (Uesugi and Moraru,
2009).