Quality and Safety of Fresh-cut Vegetables and Fruits

(1) 1. Evaluate methods of sampling and measuring flavor and nutrition of fresh-cut products to facilitate comparison to traditional shelf life factors. (2) 4. Determine critical factors in controlled inoculation studies with human pathogens and surrogates that influence the outcome of quantitative microbial risk assessments. (3) 5. Development and validation of novel diagnostic methods to determine presence of human pathogens and chemical hazards associated with fresh and fresh-cut products.