PURE Bioscience, a California-based developer of patented silver dihydrogen citrate (SDC) antimicrobial, has submitted a Food Contact Notification (FCN) to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking approval to use silver dihydrogen citrate (SDC) as an online reprocessing (OLR) antimicrobial for raw poultry processing.
Previously studies have found that SDC reduced Salmonella contamination in poultry by 2.75log10 CFU/cm² when applied as an OLR spray and 6.28 log10 CFU/cm² when combined with an immersion chilling process.
SDC also serves as an alternative to hazardous and difficult to blend chemicals that are currently used as OLR treatments in raw poultry processing.
In addition to this, SDC is easier to handle and dilute, non-corrosive to processing equipment and does not create noxious fumes.
PURE Bioscience CEO Hank Lambert said they believe that the test results included in their FCN submission, generated by incorporating SDC as an intervention component of an integrated food safety system for poultry processing, will be compelling to both the FDA and the USDA.
"We are optimistic that both agencies will view these results as a potential breakthrough in the industry's ability to dramatically reduce the Salmonella that persists through poultry processing -- thus opening a significant and important new market for SDC as a food safety solution," Lambert added.
Following the approval from both FDA and USDA, PURE will begin commercial production of SDC in the first quarter of 2015.
