Can Technology Rescue the Sprouts Industry?

While scientists are scrambling to pinpoint the cause of the E. coli outbreak linked to bean and seed sprouts in northern Germany, a veteran sprouts system designer believes he has developed the technology that can produce "the perfect sprout."

As of June 20, the outbreak had killed 39 people and sickened more than 3,000.

"If this technology had been used in the EU, those people would still be alive. I have no doubt about it," Lincoln Neal, president of Tennessee-based Quicksilver Automated Systems (www.qasc.com/index.html), told Food Safety News.

According to the company's website, Quicksilver provides state-of the art purification, propagation and processing systems for the largest sprout companies in North America.

Neal thinks the pathogen that caused the E. coli outbreak in Germany likely came in on the seeds, a conjecture that echoes warnings to sprout growers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that seeds are most often the source of most sprout-associated outbreaks.

For that reason, the agency recommends that sprout growers soak the seeds in a strong disinfecting solution, such as 20,000 ppm calcium hypochlorite, before sprouting them.

But Neal, a mechanical systems designer with a focus on disinfection, who describes himself as "a bit of a germophobe," said soaking the seeds in a strong disinfecting solution at the onset just isn't enough because the pathogens can lodge themselves into cracks and crevasses in the seeds.

Those cracks and crevasses, which he said in the microscopic world can be as large as the Grand Canyon, can provide safe harbor for the wily pathogens.

To make things more challenging yet, the seeds have a "somewhat oily surface" that can repel water. As a result, the surface tension on the outside of the seed can prevent the disinfectant from going into the cracks and crevasses in the seeds.

Neal compares that situation to the water that pools into droplets on the surface of a freshly waxed car.

He warns that if a sprout grower only disinfects the seeds at the beginning of the sprouting process, pathogens could still be lurking in the seeds, especially since sprout growers typically soak their seeds in disinfectant for only about an hour.

Neal also said that contrary to what some people in the industry assert,  bacteria such as E. coli can not only hide in the microscopic cracks but can also get inside the sprouting seeds through those cracks.

Neal believes that the solution to that dilemma is easy enough: Use a method that sanitizes the seeds as they're sprouting.

 "We focus on the first 24 to 36 hours," he said of his method

According to the company's information about its Emerald Purifier/Sprouter, the equipment can get rid of embedded pathogens inside the seed shell by repeatedly flushing the inside of the seed hull with disinfectant solution at the moments it "changes, opens, 'morphs,'  and detaches to release the sprout.

"Bacteria-occupied air cups and pockets are flushed out and disinfected," says the company literature. "Full automatic wash cycles occur as the seed pops open and the microbes become exposed."

"We go in when the seed is changing and by doing that we can get into the seed," Neal said. "The machine persistently and automatically washes the product."

Neal said that if the pathogens aren't caught early on in the process, they can get into the sprouts themselves and that no amount of spray misting a disinfectant onto them can reach every square micron of the sprouts.

"Nipping it in the bud early on in the process is essential," he said, adding that persistent disinfection doesn't erode the nutritional value of the seeds and "is in full accord with the life process of the sprouts."

 "It doesn't compromise germination or weaken it," he said.

Looking at another FDA guideline for producing sprouts that involves testing the spent irrigation water that has flowed over the seeds, Neal sees drawbacks. FDA's thinking behind that approach is that if there were any pathogens on the seeds themselves, they would multiply under the warm, moist conditions the seeds are sprouted in. If the testing, which typically occurs 48 hours into the sprouting process, reveals the presence of pathogens, then that batch can be thrown away, thus keeping it out of the marketplace.

But Neal said that as valuable as testing is, sprouting is a "hurry-up" sort of industry when it comes to shipping the fresh sprouts out to customers. For that reason, sometimes the sprouts are sent out before the test results of the spent irrigation water come back.

And even if a test-and-hold approach were adopted, Neal said that if the pathogens are deep inside the seed, the water won't be able to reach them. They could actually be trapped and not be able to get out.

"It's rare, but it could happen," he said.

Then, too, Neal said that even with the safeguards many sprout growers are using, including FDA's  guidelines, a sobering fact keeps emerging: "Somehow these pathogens are getting by these sprouters."

"That's why I think upfront methods must be incorporated," he said. "You've got to come in again and again and again to get the pathogens out. You have to be persistent -- more persistent than the microbes. They've got brilliant programming in them to stay alive."

These pathogens can be virulent. According to the FDA, a single surviving bacterium in a kilogram of seed can be enough to contaminate a whole batch of seeds.

Neal, who says he was called upon by the industry in 1985 to develop a sprout manufacturing package, has focused on modernizing an industry that had previously been more of a "flower-child kind of business."

Fast forward to the present, and Neal says he's probably designed more sprouting equipment "than anyone on the planet."

Back then, immediate questions before him were "How can this problem be solved?" "And where are these pathogens coming from and what's allowing them to proliferate."

When evaluating the potential of his equipment to produce the perfect sprout, Neal said there are no "absolutes in microbiology."

 "But if the sprout growers follow our methods and don't cheat, they can virtually eliminate the pathogens," he said.