'Boston 25 News' Profiles Lynne McLandsborough and Team on Food Safety Research

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Foods such as chocolate and peanut butter are immensely popular, but sanitizing manufacturing equipment for these foods can be challenging. Traditional cleaning methods rely on water, which these products cannot tolerate without compromising quality. As a result, manufacturers must use "dry cleaning" techniques, which are not as effective at eliminating pathogens such as salmonella, and often require lengthy shutdowns to ensure thorough decontamination.

But as Boston 25 News reports, the College of Natural Sciences's Lynne McLandsborough—a professor in the Department of Food Science; interim associate vice chancellor for research and engagement; and interim director of the Center for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment—is leading research that may change the way certain foods are sanitized. McLandsborough won the 2024 Mahoney Life Sciences Prize for this effort.

McLandsborough explains this shift away from dry cleaning techniques to Boston 25 News:

“One way you can clean [peanut butter or chocolate manufacturing equipment] is to use something called an oil push, so what my lab has started doing is formulating oils to make them antimicrobial. And we’ve been successful with several formulations.”

— Lynne McLandsborough to Boston 25 News

The article also features extension associate professor Amanda Kinchla and PhD candidate Yuzhen Zhang, who are working with McLandsborough on this research.

Click here to read the Boston 25 News profile.