Food Safety News Interviews Wu About Latest Research
Vivian Wu, a professor of microbiology and food safety in the School of Food and Agriculture, spoke with Food Safety News about her latest research. Wu recently received a $4.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to improve processing technologies to enhance the safety and quality of fresh produce and low-moisture foods, such as raw grains, spices, seeds and nuts, without using heat. “Heat is a very effective way to control microbial contamination, but there are food products that heat just doesn’t work that well,” Wu said, mentioning foods such as produce and grains. “We want to develop nonthermal processing techniques to maintain the safety of produce and low-moisture food.” This year, Wu will receive $900,000 of the $4.9 million for the first year of the five-year interdisciplinary project, which will be a joint research collaboration between UMaine and USDA’s Agricultural Research Service Eastern Regional Research Center, Virginia Tech, University of Delaware and Ohio State University, the article states.