Ep. 177. Dr. Brendan Niemira: Cold Plasma Technology for Food Safety and Sanitation

Food Safety Matters

Brendan A. Niemira, Ph.D. is a research microbiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (USDA's ARS) in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, and a graduate of the University of Chicago and Michigan State University. His research develops and validates cold plasma, pulsed light, radiofrequency energy, and other nonthermal food processing technologies. He has published over 180 peer-reviewed research articles, book chapters, and critical reviews, is the co-editor and author of a well-regarded reference text, and holds one patent. Dr. Niemira is a Fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) and a past member of the IFT Board of Directors. He currently serves on the Educational Advisory Board for the Food Safety Summit. A member of IFT, the International Association for Food Protection, and the American Society for Microbiology for more than 20 years, he also serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of Food Protection and Applied and Environmental Microbiology. He received the 2016 U.S. Department of Defense Award for Excellence and the 2020 Federal Laboratory Consortium Technology Transfer Innovation Award.

In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak with Brendan [22:52] about:

• The definition of cold plasma technology and how it can be used in the food industry to improve microbial safety
• The strengths and weaknesses of different forms of cold plasma
• Types of food for which cold plasma can be used to successfully decontaminate, and why it works best for certain food types
• Comparisons between cold plasma technology and other thermal and nonthermal decontamination techniques
• Why cold plasma technology has not yet been scaled up for widespread industry use, and for what applications commercialization could be achieved
• Factors that affect the energy costs of different cold plasma generation methods
• The possibility of adapting cold plasma technology to inactivate viruses in foodservice environments
• Human occupational health and safety considerations in the generation of cold plasma
• Takeaways from a workshop and session on root cause analysis that took place at the 2023 and 2024 Food Safety Summits, respectively
• Other research areas Dr. Niemira is working on at USDA-ARS to advance food safety.

News and Resources

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