US Patent Issued to General Mills on April 8 for "Food safety method" (Minnesota Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,268,218, issued on April 8, was assigned to General Mills Inc. (Minneapolis).

"Food safety method" was invented by David J. Domingues (Plymouth, Minn.), Steven R. Pretzel (Lakeville, Minn.), Yuewei Hu (Plymouth, Minn.), Craig A. Dowd (Eagan, Minn.) and James P. Michaels (Blaine, Minn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods for inoculating a grain suitable for use in testing methods of reducing bacterial load are disclosed. Also disclosed are methods of reducing bacterial load on a grain by using elevated temperature and an organic acid. Also disclosed are methods of tempering a grain at an elevated temperature and reduced time as compare...