UV Equipament for Food Safety

The application of ultraviolet (UV) mostly UVC to food safety has gained attention in recent years as a potential alternative to chemical and thermal disinfection methods mostly due to the movement that happens worldwide towards the consumption of organic food from small producers. The objective of this work was to present a methodology to disinfect eggs using ultraviolet radiation in an equipment made with germicidal light for aquaria and commercially available materials at low cost. To disinfect the eggs, a box of galvanized material (40 × 20 × 25 cm) was built, with two ultraviolet lamps (253.7 nm; P = 8 W), 28.7 cm long, positioned above and below a grid made of nylon wire for positioning the eggs without blocking the light. The lamps were connected in a parallel circuit, which allows the switch to be activated and the two lamps to be switched on synchronously. To evaluate microbial reduction, the Salmonella sp survival fractions of 80 eggs collected from small rural producers in the city of Votuporanga were quantified, before and after exposure to UV light for 1 min, with an energy density of 0.208 J/cm² and a power density of 3.4 mW/cm². In the tested parameters, there was a reduction of approximately 1 log of microorganisms. Therefore, we can conclude that ultraviolet light is a possible technology to be applied to decontaminate eggs contaminated with Salmonella sp, which may contribute to the reduction of foodborne diseases.