Salmonella contamination of bulb onions, which caused recalls across the U.S. and Canada in 2020, is the focus of a Texas A&M AgriLife Research project to help onion producers solve the problem.
Salmonella outbreaks in onions and onion products show that the pathogen might persist during production, handling or storage. This is a significant concern to the onion produce industry, researchers said.
“Little is known about salmonella’s behavior related to bulb onions,” said Vijay Joshi, Ph.D., AgriLife Research assistant professor in the Department of Horticultural Sciences and systems physiologist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Uvalde.
Joshi’s team, over the next two years, with more than $400,000 in grant support from the Center for Produce Safety, will develop an onion-specific risk reduction plan to deliver to industry.
FoodWorld 