Food Control 47 (2015) 1e6

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Food Control
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Survival of Salmonella enteric in skim milk powder with different

water activity and water mobility
Feng Lian a, Wei Zhao a, *, Rui-jin Yang a, Yali Tang b, Wendy Katiyo a
a
State Key Laboratory of Food Science & Technology, School of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, No. 1800 Lihu Road, Wuxi 214122, China
b
School of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Packaging Engineering, Jiangnan University, No. 1800 Lihu Road, Wuxi 214122, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Recently, the safety of low water activity (aw) foods started to become a major concern. It has been
Received 8 March 2014 observed that microorganisms may not grow in low-aw foods but can survive for rather long periods of
Received in revised form time, representing signicant risk. Most researchers have been concentrating on the role of water ac-
10 June 2014
tivity. However, little is known about the effect of water mobility on inuencing the survival of Salmo-
Accepted 17 June 2014
Available online 25 June 2014
nella in low-aw foods. In this study, water mobility of skim milk powder was manipulated using ultra-
high pressure to change tertiary structure, thus changing watereprotein interactions. Skim milk pow-
der with different levels of water mobility at similar aw level were obtained to evaluate how aw and water
Keywords:
Low-water activity foods
mobility inuenced the survival of Salmonella enteric in low-aw foods. Results showed that aw could
Water activity inuence the survival of S. enteric and the lower the aw, the higher the survival. Water mobility had little
Water mobility inuence on the survival of S. enteric when aw was 0.33 and 0.53. However, it inuenced its survival
when aw was increased to 0.81. The survival population of S. enteric was higher in the sample with low
water mobility.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction contamination continues, even in large multi-national companies

Low-water activity foods are those with water activity (aw)
levels lower than 0.85 (Beuchat et al., 2013). Low-aw foods include
milk powder, egg powder, chocolate, peanut butter and so on. They
are usually believed to have the advantages of controlling the
growth of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms. Hence, their
microbial safety is usually ignored by the public. Recently, a num-
ber of outbreaks associated with low-aw foods and pathogens
occurred, resulting in the safety of these foods becoming a major
concern (Awuah, Ramaswamy, Economides, & Mallikarjunan,
2005; Beuchat et al., 2013; CDC, 2007; Farakos, Frank, &
Schaffner, 2013; Finstad, O'Bryan, Marcy, Crandall, & Ricke, 2012;
Koch et al., 2005). The contamination of low-aw foods with Sal-
monella is not an unknown problem. It has been observed that
foodborne pathogens may not grow in low-aw foods but can survive
for rather long periods of time once the food is contaminated, thus
representing signicant risk even at low levels. However, current
practices appear inadequate to address this challenge, as
* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: 86 510 85919150.
E-mail addresses: zhaow@jiangnan.edu.cn (W. Zhao), ruijinyang@yahoo.com.cn
(R.-j. Yang).
that employ experienced food microbiologists and risk managers.
It is known that aw is one of the basic properties of a food that
exerts major inuence on microbial survival and growth (Beuchat
et al., 2013; Farakos et al., 2013; Laroche, Fine, & Gervais, 2005).
Some research has been conducted in this aspect, but the conclu-
sions about the inuence of aw on microbial survival in low-aw
foods by different groups are inconsistent. Jung and Beuchat (1999)
concluded that Salmonella died more rapidly in higher aw egg white
powder than in lower aw powder. However, Mattick et al., (2001)
observed that the relationship between microbial survival and aw
may change at different temperatures (Mattick et al., 2001). Their
study demonstrated that Salmonella at low aw (0.65) was more heat
tolerant at temperatures above 70
C than when at higher aw (0.90),
but the reverse was true at lower temperatures. Laroche et al.,
(2005) used Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Lactobacillus plantarum
as test organisms. The microorganisms exhibited different survival
ability in the low-aw foods (wheat our and skim milk) when they
were adjusted to the same water activity. There was a range of aw
for greatest heat resistance for each microorganism and low-aw
food across all temperatures. Moreover, some researchers (Hills,
Manning, Ridge, & Brocklehurst, 1997) indicated that the molecu-
lar mobility of water in low-aw foods is an important factor in
microbial survival. Microbial survival in low-aw foods did not

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2014.06.036
0956-7135/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 F. Lian et al. / Food Control 47 (2015) 1e6
correlate to water activity, but did correlate to molecular mobility
of the water. Vittadini, Chinachoti, Lavoie, and Pham (2005) pro-
vided evidence that microbial behavior was more closely associated
with molecular mobility in low-aw foods and aw provided good
predictions of microbial behavior only in high-aw foods. A recent
study (Farakos et al., 2013) determined and discussed how the
physical state of water in low-aw foods inuences the survival of
Salmonella, employing whey protein powder with different water
mobility at similar aw levels by pH adjustment and heat denatur-
ation. The results demonstrated that aw signicantly inuenced the
survival of Salmonella at all temperatures, survival increasing with
decreasing aw. Water mobility did not signicantly inuence sur-
vival independent of aw. In their study, the water mobility of whey
protein powder was manipulated using pH adjustments to change
the tertiary structure, thus changing watereprotein interactions. In
this way, the solutes for the low-aw foods with different water
mobility at similar aw levels are difcult to keep the same. It has
been evidenced that use of different solutes to achieve similar
water activities produces markedly different microbial survival
kinetics (Mattick et al., 2001).
In low-aw foods, most of the water is in glassy and rubbery states
so the water has limited mobility. Since water molecules must
contact the bacterial cell for interaction, the ease of transition be-
tween physical states, i.e. molecular mobility, should indicate the
potential for interaction between bacterial cells and water. In the
present work, water mobility of skim milk powder was manipu-
lated using ultra-high pressure to change the tertiary structure of
protein, thus changing watereprotein interactions. Skim milk
powder, with different water mobility at similar aw levels and other
conditions (such as solutes), was obtained to evaluate how aw and
water mobility inuence the survival of Salmonella in low-aw foods.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Modication of skim milk powder
The water mobility of skim milk powder (Bright dairy corpora-
tion, China) was manipulated using ultra-high pressure adjust-
ments to change the secondary and tertiary structure of protein,
thus changing watereprotein interactions. Skim milk powder
(500 g) and water (500 mL) were made into a solution. The solution
was then transferred into polyethylene bags and a vacuum sealer
(A300/16, Multiuac, Germany) was used to remove most of the air.
The sealed samples were stored overnight at 4
C. Ultra-high
pressure treatments were performed by ultra-high pressure
equipment (UHPF-800MPa-5L, Baotou Kefa Co., China) for 10 min at
approximately 25
C. The temperature of the vessel was kept at
room temperature. The compression and decompression rate was
25 MPa/s. The samples were treated at 100, 200, 300, 400 or
500 MPa. The control sample was hydrated overnight at 4
C but
was not treated by ultra-high pressure. After treatment, samples
were then poured into sterile Petri dishes and frozen to 80
C
overnight in a freezer (HFU 586 Basic, Thermal Scientic, Germany).
The samples were then placed in a vacuum freeze drier (7948030,
Labconco, US) for 3 days to obtain aw levels below 0.10. Once freeze
dried, the samples were broken down to homogenous particles
with a mortar and pestle.
2.2. Adjustment of the aw of re-dried samples
Re-dried samples were adjusted to the targeted aw values in
vacuum desiccators containing various saturated salt solutions of
known relative vapor pressures. The targeted aw levels were: 0.33
(Magnesium Chloride), 0.53 (Magnesium Nitrate) and 0.81
(ammonium sulfate). Equilibrium was assumed when there was no
further change in weight. The aw of samples was measured using a
water activity meter (Hygrolab2, Rotronic, Switzerland).
2.3. Water mobility determination
A low-eld 1H Nuclear Magnetic Resonance analyzer (MicroMR-
CL, Niumag Corporation, Shanghai, China) with a resonance fre-
quency of 21.798 MHz and 0.55 T magnetic eld was used for
measurements of proton transversal relaxation time (T2). The
transversal relaxation time was measured with a
CarrePurcelleMeiboomeGill (CPMG) pulse sequence. The experi-
mental parameters were as follows: the 90
pulse width was 3 ms,
the 180
pulse width was 7 ms, the Number of Scans (NS) was 16,
the Receiver Gain (RG) was set to 20 dB, the echo time (TE) was
80 ms and the echo number was set to 1000. The values of T21
relaxation time were recorded.
2.4. Procedure for inoculating milk powder for storage experiments
Salmonella enteric (JFM-125) isolated from powdered infant
formula was a gift from Food Biotechnology Center of Jiangnan
University. The cultures were maintained at 4
C on LuriaeBertani
(LB) ager and activated by transferring a loop of inocula into 150 mL
nutrient broth and cultured for 14 h at 37
C. Cultures were har-
vested by centrifugation (9000 rpm, 5 min), and pellets were
washed twice in 150 mL of sterile 0.1% peptone water. Finally, the
pellets were re-suspended in 3 mL sterile 0.1% peptone water. The
suspension was poured into a sterile Petri dish and put in a desic-
cator for 3 days to ensure aw of below 0.10. The dried cells were
ground with a mortar and pestle. The dried inoculum (0.01 g) was
mixed with 0.99 g of equilibrated skim milk powder to provide a
1.00 g sample in a polypropylene vial. It was assumed that the
addition of inoculum did not inuence aw of the milk powder
because the dose was too small to be signicant. The samples were
placed in retort pouches, then vacuum packaged. The vacuum
packaged samples were stored in desiccators at their corresponding
relative humidity in an incubator at 37
C. The samples were taken
at: 0, 3, 6, 12, 30 and 60 days for survival experiments.
2.5. Enumeration of cultivable Salmonella
The plate count method was adopted to enumerate Salmonella
populations. Each inoculated sample (1.00 g) was assayed for
population of Salmonella at selected time intervals. All samples
were respectively dissolved in 9 mL sterile saline and homogenized
for 1 min with a vortex (Lab Dancer, IKA, Germany). After homog-
enization, 1 mL dissolved sample was serially diluted using sterile
test tubes containing 9 mL sterile saline to obtain the appropriate
degree of dilution. Then 1 mL appropriate dilution was transferred
to a Petri dish, and soon afterwards approximately 15 mL nutrient
ager, with the temperature about 46
C, was added. When the
nutrient agar (Sinopharm Chemical Reagent, China) solidied, the
petri dishes were inverted and placed in an incubator. The plates
were enumerated after incubation at 37
C for 24 h.
2.6. Statistical analysis and curve tting
Cultivability of S. enteric for each combination of water activity
and water mobility was performed. Each experiment was carried
out at least in triplicate. Data was analyzed in Microsoft Excel 2010
(Microsoft Corporation, US). Initial data (CFU/g) was converted into
log of the survival of S. enteric at a given time. Comparison was
made by SPSS software. Curves were tted using the Curve Expert
software (Version 1.3). This software contained 60 models. The
most appropriate model was chosen to describe the curves.
 F. Lian et al. / Food Control 47 (2015) 1e6 3

3. Results and discussion

3.1. The survival of S. enteric inuenced by water activity

The viability results for S. enteric in skim milk powder at three

levels of aw at 37
C are shown in Fig. 1. After adjusting to the tar-
geted aw and inoculating with S. enteric, the initial populations
were 9.90, 10.01 and 10.19 logs, in samples with aw of 0.33, 0.53 and
0.81, respectively. A reduction of about 3.96 logs occurred within
the rst month of storage, and about 0.27 logs in the second month
at aw 0.33. At aw 0.53, the reduction population during the rst
month was 3.89 logs, and it was similar to that at aw 0.33. Reduction
during the second month was 0.8 logs, and this was signicantly
higher than at aw 0.33 (p < 0.05). Reduction populations at aw of
0.81 were 4.69 and 1.16 logs, respectively. They were both signi-
cantly higher than that at aw 0.33 and 0.53 (p < 0.05). This indicates
that the death rate during the rst month was higher than the
second, at the three aw of skim milk powder. This phenomenon is in
agreement with observations by Licari and Potter (1970). These
researchers reported that Salmonella in skim milk powder died in a
two-stage process: rapid death during the rst several weeks fol-
lowed by slow death during the remaining shelf life. After storage
for two months, the reduction populations were 4.23, 4.69 and
5.85 logs at aw levels of 0.33, 0.53 and 0.81, respectively. This is
similar with the results of Jung and Beuchat (1999), who reported
that after storage of two months at 37
C, log populations in all the
samples were less than 1.00 log with an initial population of about
5.00 logs. It also indicates that survival is enhanced as the aw of
skim milk powder decreases. Vesterlund, Salminen, and Salminen
(2012) studied the effect of aw on the storage stability of pro-
biotics included in crushed axseed to identify the right aw level for
storage at room temperature. They observed that at the highest aw
tested (0.43), the probiotic product was unstable. Within 4 months
of storage, the reduction of viable cells was 3.70, 0.81 and 0.29 logs
at aw of 0.43, 0.22 and 0.11, respectively, demonstrating that lower
aw is more suitable for the survival of microorganisms in dried
foods.

3.2. Preparation of samples with different water mobility by ultra-

high pressure

Ultra-high pressure is classied as non-thermal processing

technique, using the uid medium (water or oil) for transmitting
pressure. Proteins or complex biopolymers subjected to ultra-high

Fig. 2. Continuous relaxation time spectra of samples at three aw and six water
mobility (water mobility 1: control, water mobility 2: protein denatured at 100 MPa,
water mobility 3: protein denatured at 200 MPa, water mobility 4: protein denatured
at 300 MPa, water mobility 5: protein denatured at 400 MPa, water mobility 5: protein
denatured at 500 MPa).

Fig. 1. Viability of S. enteric at 37
C and 3 water activities (aw) during 2 months of

storage in skim milk powder.
4 F. Lian et al. / Food Control 47 (2015) 1e6

pressure may have their tertiary and secondary structures modied

by disrupting hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions (Molina,
Papadopoulou, & Ledward, 2001). It has been widely used in the
modication of proteins. In this study, water mobility of skim milk
powder was manipulated using ultra-high pressure to change the
tertiary structure of proteins, thus changing watereprotein in-
teractions, that is water mobility. Skim milk powder with different
water mobility at similar aw levels and other conditions (such as
solutes) were obtained to evaluate the inuence of aw and water
mobility on the survival of Salmonella in low-aw foods.
LF 1H NMR has been used to investigate water mobility in ma-
terials and foods (Choi & Kerr, 2003; Fan et al., 2013). LF 1H NMR can
measure proton relaxation, thus can be used to study changes in
water mobility (Carneiro et al., 2013). Continuously distributed
exponential curve tting was performed on the obtained T2 relax-
ation time from samples. Dependence of the nature of skim milk
powder, the faster relaxation component which ranges from 0 to
10 ms in the following is called T21. In the present study, T21 rep-
resents the water which is closely associated with macromolecules
and microbial cells (Li et al., 2012). Fig. 2 shows the distributed T2
relaxation time spectra of skim milk powder submitted to different
treatments with ultra-high pressure. Table 1 shows the values of T21
detected by LF 1H NMR according to the different treatments of
skim milk powder. Comparison of the continuous distributed
curves, at three aw levels of 0.33, 0.53 and 0.81, reveals visible
differences between the treated skim milk powder and the control.
The treated samples mostly tended to exhibit a broader T21 distri-
bution than the control, which is likely due to the differences in
water distribution caused by ultra-high pressure. Fig. 2 shows
signicant differences in the distribution of water mobility be-
tween different treated samples. As shown in Fig. 2(a), a signicant
increase (p < 0.05) in relaxation time (T21) was observed in the
samples treated with pressure of 100, 200, 300 and 400 MPa. The
T21 distribution of the sample treated with 500 MPa pressure was
broader than the control. However, it was narrower than the rest of
the samples. This phenomena indicates that pressure ranging from
100 to 500 MPa affects the T21 distribution at aw 0.33. As shown in
Fig. 2(b), the curve of the sample at aw 0.53 is similar to that at aw

Table 1
Range of the LF 1H NMR obtained in skim milk powder, according to the different
treatments.

aw Water mobility T21 (ms)

a
0.33 0.05 1 0.187
2b 0.756
3c 0.498
4d 0.572
5e 0.498
6f 0.248
0.53 0.04 1 0.327
2 0.658
3 0.572
4 0.658
5 0.756
6 0.572
0.81 0.06 1 0.756
2 1.000
3 1.000
4 1.000
5 1.000
6 0.376 Fig. 3. Survival of S. enteric in samples at three aw and six water mobility (water
a
Control. mobility 1: control, water mobility 2: protein denatured at 100 MPa, water mobility 3:
b
Protein denatured at 100 MPa. protein denatured at 200 MPa, water mobility 4: protein denatured at 300 MPa, water
c
Protein denatured at 200 MPa. mobility 5: protein denatured at 400 MPa, water mobility 6: protein denatured at
d
Protein denatured at 300 MPa. 500 MPa).
e
Protein denatured at 400 MPa.
f
Protein denatured at 500 MPa.
 F. Lian et al. / Food Control 47 (2015) 1e6 5

0.33. The samples treated with pressure ranging from 100 to
400 MPa had similar T21 distributions, indicating that they had
similar water mobility. Fig. 2(c) shows the T2 distribution of skim
milk powder at aw 0.81. It was also discovered that the samples
treated with pressure ranging from 100 to 400 MPa had similar T21
distributions, and as shown in Table 1, the T21 values of these
samples were the same. The other signicant difference is that the
T21 value of the sample treated with 500 MPa is lower than the
control, which suggests that its water mobility is lower.
3.3. The cultivability of S. enteric inuenced by water mobility
Fig. 3 shows the cultivability of S. enteric in skim milk powder
treated at different pressure at three aw. It was observed that about
5.00 logs of S. enteric were inactive after two months storage in all
the samples from Fig. 3(a). This indicates that water mobility has
little inuence on the cultivability of S. enteric compared with the
control at aw 0.33 (p > 0.05). This was also demonstrated by
Farakos et al., (2013). They revealed that water activity signicantly
inuenced the survival of Salmonella in low-aw foods (aw < 0.60),
while water mobility had no effect independent of aw. Vittadini
et al. (2005) investigated the correlation of microbial response in
model food systems with physico-chemical and mobility de-
scriptors of the media. They studied the role of aw, macromolec-
ular mobility and water molecular dynamics in multicomponent
model food (ranging from solid to liquid) systems in their corre-
lation with microbial activity. It was found that a correlation be-
tween cell death and increased 1H and 2H NMR mobility in low-aw
foods (solid and semisolid media), indicating NMR molecular
mobility is a possible tool to describe water availability in solid and
semisolid systems (dry and intermediate moisture foods), while in
a high moisture system, the use of water activity remains a valid
indicator for microbial activity. However, it is difcult to differen-
tiate the action of water mobility from that of aw because different
water mobility with different aw were employed to correlate with
microbial response. To further discriminate the inuence of mo-
lecular mobility on microbial survival behavior in low-aw foods, the
present study prepared skim milk powder with different water
mobility at similar aw levels to evaluate how aw and water mobility
inuence the survival of Salmonella in low-aw foods. As shown in
Fig. 3(b), all samples had similar reduction during the two months
storage period, which was similar at aw 0.33. It also indicates that
water mobility has little inuence on the cultivability of S. enteric at
this level of aw (p > 0.05). The cultivability of S. enteric at aw 0.81
after storage at 37
C was assayed in the treated and control skim
milk powder for up to two months (Fig. 3(c)). During the rst
month, the curve for the sample with water mobility 6 was similar
to others'. However, in the second month, the S. enteric in the
sample with water mobility 6 had a reduction of 0.39 logs which
was signicantly lower (p < 0.05) than the reduction of approxi-
mately 1.28 logs for the other samples. The spectra of LF 1H NMR
(Fig. 2(c)) has indicates that water mobility of the sample treated
with 500 MPa is weaker (p < 0.05) than the rest. These results
suggest that water mobility has little inuence on the survival of
S. enteric at low aw (aw < 0.53). However, it could inuence the
cultivability of S. enteric in skim milk powder at aw 0.81 (Fig. 3(c)).
After two months storage, the decrease of microorganisms in the
sample with water mobility 6 was about 5.00 logs. The rest of the
samples had about 6.00 logs decrease. This indicates that water
mobility may exert its effect at higher aw in low moisture content
foods and the cultivability population of S. enteric is higher in the
sample with lower water mobility. This level of aw is similar with
the aw (0.75e0.97) used by Pham, Vittadini, Levin, and Chinachoti
(1999), who reported that the germination time of the L-sorbose
resistant strain of Aspergillus nidulans was highly dependent on
solid composition and aw (0.75e0.95) but correlation was best with
water mobility as indicated by 2H NMR T2 relaxation time.
Vittadini, Dickinson, and Chinachoti (2002) reported that a strong
mannitolewater interaction, leading to a decreased mobility,
played a role in protecting cells from death. The published litera-
ture to date indicates little attempt to reveal molecular mecha-
nisms involved in cell survival to discriminate water mobility from
aw. It was speculated that a higher water molecular mobility might
have allowed initiation but not completion of metabolic reactions
leading to cells death (Vittadini et al., 2005). Further studies are
needed to understand the metabolic response of the cell to water
mobility and aw.
3.4. Fitting of inactivation models of S. enteric in samples with
different water mobility and aw
Farakos et al. (2013) developed models for non-fat food systems.
They observed that the survival data at 36
C could be described by
all models with the exception of the log-linear model. In this study,

Table 2
Statistical parameter, standard error (S) and relation index (r) of the model of Logistic model and Exponential association.

Water activity Conguration Logistic model Exponential association

a b c r S a b r S

0.33 0.05 0.187 4.060 11.972 0.282 0.986 0.377 4.333 0.076 0.992 0.254
0.756 4.354 14.567 0.284 0.995 0.253 4.703 0.068 0.993 0.256
0.498 4.376 44.382 0.352 0.997 0.200 5.012 0.05 0.983 0.399
0.572 4.392 41.470 0.345 0.997 0.188 5.025 0.050 0.982 0.430
0.498 4.226 107.747 0.448 0.999 0.106 4.739 0.054 0.964 0.592
0.248 4.198 17.982 0.300 0.994 0.259 4.573 0.0646 0.988 0.323
0.53 0.04 0.327 4.151 13.728 0.293 0.990 0.329 4.479 0.072 0.990 0.289
0.658 4.644 14.282 0.318 0.984 0.470 5.046 0.075 0.988 0.356
0.572 4.395 21.277 0.343 0.987 0.413 4.784 0.0696 0.979 0.463
0.658 4.451 6.285 0.244 0.968 0.592 4.597 0.100 0.991 0.274
0.756 4.370 14.973 0.300 0.987 0.408 4.716 0.071 0.997 0.229
0.572 4.623 7.286 0.165 0.985 0.410 4.988 0.057 0.997 0.157
0.81 0.06 0.756 5.267 6.749 0.216 0.966 0.722 5.634 0.076 0.991 0.325
1.000 5.135 5.626 0.188 0.950 0.843 5.553 0.071 0.980 0.468
1.000 5.088 8.560 0.223 0.961 0.776 5.676 0.062 0.987 0.388
1.000 5.376 10.328 0.240 0.979 0.610 5.802 0.067 0.991 0.341
1.000 5.521 7.675 0.117 0.968 0.723 6.204 0.039 0.992 0.316
0.376 4.458 23.223 0.272 0.992 0.323 5.173 0.047 0.989 0.332
a, b, c
the parameters in equation, r relation index, S
standard error.
6 F. Lian et al. / Food Control 47 (2015) 1e6
the Curve Expert software was used to nd a suitable model with
time as X-axis and log (N0/Nt) as Y-axis. The Logistic model (Equa-
tion (1)) and Exponential association (Equation (2)) were more
suitable for the survival of S. enteric in comparison with other
models.
(1) Logistic model
a Salmonella serotype Tennessee infections associated with peanut butter e
y (1)
1 becx
(2) Exponential association
 
y a 1  ebx (2)
Table 2 shows the parameter details for these two models for all
samples. It was observed that Exponential association is more
suitable for the inactivation of S. enteric for all samples compared
with Logistic model. Exponential association was therefore selected
as the model to describe the inactivation of S. enteric. It was also
observed that the parameters for the sample with aw 0.81 and T21
0.376 are different from other samples with aw 0.81. This may
indicate that water mobility may inuence the survival of S. enteric
at aw 0.81.
4. Conclusions
S. enteric could survive for a long period of time in skim milk
powder. The survival could be inuenced by water activity and
water mobility. The higher the aw of skim milk powder, the lower
the S. enteric survival. When aw was at 0.33 and 0.53, water mobility
had little effect. However, water mobility also inuenced the sur-
vival of S. enteric when aw was increased to 0.81. The survival
population of S. enteric was higher in the sample with low water
mobility.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the nancial support pro-
vided by Project 31101376 of the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China, the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in
University of Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. NCET-13-
0834) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Uni-
versities (JUSRP51406A).
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