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Abstract
Yearly, Salmonella enterica causes 80.3 million cases of salmonellosis from contaminated foods, and 155,000 deaths world-wide (Majowicz et al., 2010). Low- moisture, high-fat foods may shield Salmonella cells with lipid molecules which reduces the effectiveness of thermal treatments (Finn et al., 2013). This highlights the need for efficient thermal processing of such foods. The research objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of thermal treatments at 80 and 90°C, using D-values, for reducing Salmonella in two low-moisture foods- cashew butter and chocolate hazelnut spread. With 90°C treatment, S. Typhimurium was significantly (p≤0.05) more thermotolerant in the chocolate hazelnut spread as compared to cashew butter and S. Oranienburg was more (p≤0.05) thermotolerant in cashew butter than chocolate hazelnut spread. Differences (p≤0.05) were not observed at 80°C. Findings show processing under 46.40±8.35 and 12.2±1.30 min for either inoculated nut butter is insufficient for a 5- log reduction at 80 and 90°C, respectively.