Use of citric acid and garlic extract to inhibit Salmonella enterica and Listeria monocytogenes in hummus.

Abstract Recently, the consumption of hummus has become popular in the United States, European countries, and Canada, and unfortunately, several foodborne outbreaks and recalls have been reported due to its contamination with Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella enterica. The current study aimed to investigate the inhibitory activity of 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5% citric acid (CA) and 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0% garlic extract (GE) toward S. enterica and L. monocytogenes in hummus stored at 4, 10 and 24 °C. L. monocytogenes grew well in untreated (control) hummus samples at all tested temperatures, whereas S. enterica grew only at 10 and 24 °C. CA at 0.5 to 1.5% reduced L. monocytogenes numbers by 3.0–3.3 log CFU/g at 4 °C, 1.7–3.9 log CFU/g at 10 °C, and 0.9–1.4 log CFU/g at 24 °C. Numbers of S. enterica were reduced by 0.6–1.7, 4.1–4.9 and