Temperature Most Salmonella serotypes can grow over the temperature range 7 – 48 ºC, but growth is slow at temperatures below 10 ºC. Reports suggesting that some serotypes can grow at temperatures as low as 4 ºC are not universally accepted. Nevertheless Salmonella is able to survive for extended periods in chilled and frozen foods. The majority of Salmonella serotypes are not particularly heat resistant and are usually killed by pasteurisation processes. D-values are typically 1 – 10 mins at 60 ºC and less than 1 min at 70 ºC, with typical z-values of 4 – 5 ºC. However, there are some important exceptions. Some rare serotypes such as S. Senftenberg are much more heat resistant (approximately 10 – 20 times) than others at high water activities, and some foods with high fat content or low water activity reduce the effectiveness of heat treatments that would normally destroy the cells. pH A few Salmonella serotypes can grow over a range of pH values from 3.7- 9.5 under otherwise ideal conditions, but the optimum is 6.5 – 7.5. Although Salmonella cannot grow under very acid conditions, the cells are able to survive for some time in acid environments. Water activity Salmonellae are not able to grow in dry environments and require water activity values of at least 0.94 to multiply in foods. The cells will die out at lower water activities values, but inactivation can be extremely slow in some products (measured in years), particularly those with very low moisture and high fat content, such as chocolate. Salmonella may also survive for some time on dry food production surfaces. Atmosphere All salmonellae can grow with or without oxygen (facultative anaerobes) and in atmospheres containing high levels of carbon dioxide (possibly up to 80 % in some conditions). Chemicals Salmonella is not especially resistant to sanitisers used in the food industry, but is able to form protective biofilms if cleaning is inadequate.
growth conditions (general, not exactly lab-specific)