TY - JOUR
T1 - Sustainability of safe foods
T2 - Joint environmental, economic and microbial load reduction assessment of antimicrobial systems in U.S. beef processing
AU - Li, Shaobin
AU - Zhilyaev, Samson
AU - Gallagher, Daniel
AU - Subbiah, Jeyamkondan
AU - Dvorak, Bruce
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture [2012-68003-30155] and by Graduate Research Support grant from the Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska. We gratefully thank the China Scholarship Council for supporting a partial scholarship to Shaobin Li for his Ph.D. studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We also thank Drs. Dennis Burson, Chris Calkins and Gary Sullivan from Animal Science Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for providing their insights and suggestions on the analysis of discolored meat.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture , U.S. Department of Agriculture [ 2012-68003-30155 ] and by Graduate Research Support grant from the Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska. We gratefully thank the China Scholarship Council for supporting a partial scholarship to Shaobin Li for his Ph.D. studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We also thank Drs. Dennis Burson, Chris Calkins and Gary Sullivan from Animal Science Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for providing their insights and suggestions on the analysis of discolored meat.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2019/11/15
Y1 - 2019/11/15
N2 - Various antimicrobial interventions are applied sequentially in the beef processing industry to reduce microbial load on beef products by using intensive inputs (e.g., chemicals, energy), high strength wastewater, and potentially result in meat discoloration. This study serves as the first analysis to jointly evaluate environmental and economic assessment with its microbial load reduction of proposed antimicrobial systems in the U.S. beef processing industry to identify relatively sustainable systems that minimize environmental and economic impacts while providing microbial safe meat. Specifically, forty potential sequential antimicrobial systems were proposed and evaluated from three perspectives: microbial load reduction, environmental, and economic impacts, by meta-analysis, life cycle assessment, and operational cost analysis orderly. The results show that the antimicrobial systems applying steam pasteurization during the main intervention offer high microbial load reduction (>4.2 log CFU/cm2 reduction from a hypothetical initial contamination at 5.0 log CFU/cm2). Human health impact (31.0 to 65.6%) and ecosystem toxicity (3.6 to 12.5%), eutrophication (11.9 to 15.5%) and global warming (6.4 to 22.2%) are the main contributors to the overall environmental single score among the forty antimicrobial systems. Antimicrobial chemicals (up to 82.8%), wastewater treatment (up to 12.7%), and natural gas (up to 10.7%) are the three major drivers of operational cost for sanitizing 1000 kg hot standard carcass weight (HSCW). Devalued (discolored) meat due to contact with heat from steam pasteurization or hot water wash has a considerable increase in economic ($4.5/1000 HSCW) and environmental (especially at farm stage) impacts. Certain antimicrobial systems (e.g., water wash followed by steam pasteurization) were found to be more promising with satisfactory effectiveness, better environmental and cost performance under uncertainty (1000 Monte Carlo simulations). Results from this study can guide the U.S. beef processing industry to advance sustainability while protecting human health from foodborne illness.
AB - Various antimicrobial interventions are applied sequentially in the beef processing industry to reduce microbial load on beef products by using intensive inputs (e.g., chemicals, energy), high strength wastewater, and potentially result in meat discoloration. This study serves as the first analysis to jointly evaluate environmental and economic assessment with its microbial load reduction of proposed antimicrobial systems in the U.S. beef processing industry to identify relatively sustainable systems that minimize environmental and economic impacts while providing microbial safe meat. Specifically, forty potential sequential antimicrobial systems were proposed and evaluated from three perspectives: microbial load reduction, environmental, and economic impacts, by meta-analysis, life cycle assessment, and operational cost analysis orderly. The results show that the antimicrobial systems applying steam pasteurization during the main intervention offer high microbial load reduction (>4.2 log CFU/cm2 reduction from a hypothetical initial contamination at 5.0 log CFU/cm2). Human health impact (31.0 to 65.6%) and ecosystem toxicity (3.6 to 12.5%), eutrophication (11.9 to 15.5%) and global warming (6.4 to 22.2%) are the main contributors to the overall environmental single score among the forty antimicrobial systems. Antimicrobial chemicals (up to 82.8%), wastewater treatment (up to 12.7%), and natural gas (up to 10.7%) are the three major drivers of operational cost for sanitizing 1000 kg hot standard carcass weight (HSCW). Devalued (discolored) meat due to contact with heat from steam pasteurization or hot water wash has a considerable increase in economic ($4.5/1000 HSCW) and environmental (especially at farm stage) impacts. Certain antimicrobial systems (e.g., water wash followed by steam pasteurization) were found to be more promising with satisfactory effectiveness, better environmental and cost performance under uncertainty (1000 Monte Carlo simulations). Results from this study can guide the U.S. beef processing industry to advance sustainability while protecting human health from foodborne illness.
KW - Economic analysis
KW - Environmental footprint
KW - Food sustainability
KW - Food-energy-water nexus
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068875520&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85068875520&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.064
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.064
M3 - Article
C2 - 31323571
AN - SCOPUS:85068875520
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 691
SP - 252
EP - 262
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
ER -