Ensuring the Safety of New Mexico's Chile Products Using In-Plant Molecular Detection of Pathogens
Project Leader: Willis Fedio, Director/Research Associate Professor
Food Safety Laboratory
Center for Animal Health and Food Safety
New Mexico State University
Salmonella enterica and Listeria monocytogenes have been isolated from chile products and are known to be able to persist in food processing facilities. We intend to evaluate Neogen ANSR (Amplified Nucleic Single temperature Reaction) assays for Salmonella and Listeria detection against the cultural procedure used by the FDA (with both real-time PCR and Enzyme Linked Immunofluorescent screening) for green chile, red chile and processing plant environmental samples to determine its suitability as an alternative for chile processors. The research could provide New Mexico Chile Processors with a tool for conducting in-house environmental monitoring for pathogenic bacteria and lead to considerable savings for testing these samples.
