Microbial load on fresh peaches and hand gloves collected from selected packing facilities in Georgia

Duplicate peach samples were collected from the dumping and weighing areas of four fresh peach packing lines in Georgia at 0, 3, and 6 h into the packing process on 3 random packing days per operation in the summers of 2018 and 2019, along with duplicate glove samples from peach sorters and packers at the manual sorting and weighing areas. The samples were analyzed for the population of total aerobes (TA), total yeasts and molds (YM), and total coliforms (TC), as well as the incidence of thermotolerance coliforms (TTC) and Enterococci (EC). Not affected by sampling time, peach samples from the weighing area had significantly higher (P < 0.05) TA, YM, and TC counts and >5 or 3 times higher incidence of TTC or EC than those from the dumping area. The counts of TA, YM, and TC on hand gloves from peach sorters and packers were similar, but they were significantly higher at the 3 and 6 h sampling points than at the 0 h sampling point. Among analyzed glove samples, 39.39% and 7.58% tested positive for TTC or EC. Thus, packing line hygiene and hand gloves worn by peach handlers could be possible sources of fresh peach contamination.