Food and Water - Post-Harvest Unit

Professors-in-charge: Drs. James Dickson and Joseph Sebranek

The objective of this unit is to prevent, or reduce to acceptable levels, contamination which occurs during the post-harvest processes in the conversion of plant and animal products into food for human consumption. The mechanisms of contamination during processing are evaluated; including contamination, which enters with the food material, and additional contamination, which may occur during processing. The types of contamination include physical, chemical and biological hazards.

The unit directs research towards assays to detect physical, chemical and biological hazards. The unit examines the fundamental methods of contamination of foods with these hazards, with the intention of developing intervention strategies to prevent, eliminate or reduce such hazards to acceptable levels. These studies are coordinated with other units, especially the Food-borne Infectious Disease (pre-harvest) and the Food and Water-Harvest units, as many of the hazards associated with foods are introduced during the pre-harvest and harvest environments. In addition, the post-harvest unit has the responsibility of conducting research in the areas of packaging and distribution of foods. The research on water focuses on the role of water as it relates to the production of safe foods (e.g., irrigation water contaminated with animal wastes has been linked to an outbreak of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in lettuce).

The unit also participates in surveys to determine the current levels of specific contaminants in foods at the processing and distribution level. Affiliated faculty and their areas of expertise are: