Fresh Express, the top producer of packaging salads in North America, yesterday announced that it had awarded nine research teams up to $250,000 each to study the pathogen.

Fresh Express said the research will be conducted under the guidance of an independent scientific advisory panel as a means to support industrywide food safety solutions.

Fresh Express products were not involved in recent outbreaks of E. coli in spinach and lettuce, the company stressed. The company said it would share any research findings with other industry participants.

According to food safety and health authorities, much remains to be learned about how the E. coli O157:H7 strain responsible for the outbreaks contaminated those foods.

This makes new research about the pathogen and how to prevent its contamination in leafy greens and fresh produce critically important to consumers and the fresh produce industry, said Michael Osterholm, research and policy director at the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease.

Osterholm is also a voluntary chairman of a Fresh Express scientific advisory panel.

"Fresh Express is committed to bringing healthy, safe products to consumers, and we plan to share any research findings as widely as possible to help stimulate the development of advanced safeguards within the fresh-cut industry," he said.

One of the funded projects will study E. coli O157:H7 in pre-harvest lettuce. Another will examine the movement of E. coli O157:H7 in spinach and its dissemination to leafy greens by insects.

Meanwhile Ahmed Yousef, a microbiologist at Ohio State University will study the sanitization of leafy vegetables with gaseous ozone.

Fresh Express is a subsidiary of Chiquita Brands International. The company invented a special bag in the early 1980s designed to keep packaged greens fresh, and claims to have pioneered the multi-billion dollar retail packaged salad category.