The Center for Produce Safety (CPS) has announced its 2026 Research Priorities and opened a call for research proposals that align with the priorities.

CPS’ Research Priorities are developed in collaboration with industry and scientific experts to target critical knowledge gaps. Priorities are presented conceptually rather than prescriptively, and are designed to provide guidance while allowing flexibility in objectives and technical design.

“Industry stakeholders have shared their top food safety questions, and the Center for Produce Safety is committed to funding research that delivers clear, practical outcomes that ensure consumer confidence in the food that nourishes our families and communities,” said Suresh DeCosta, M.S., CPS Technical Committee Chair and Director of Food Safety at Lipman Family Farms. “We invite scientists to partner with us in advancing solutions that would continue to reduce food safety risk.”

The Research Priorities comprise four themes and 18 priority areas, specifically:

Theme 1—Foundational Knowledge:

1. Crop production soil as a non-host reservoir of contamination: Systems-approach to minimizing rotational sources, persistence, and transference
2. Comprehensive systems approach to foodborne contaminant dispersal and persistence
3. Predictive modeling of dynamic interactions in diverse packing and packaging on pathogen survival and infectivity/virulence during pre-transport holding through post-distribution detection
4. Determine and partition the comparative impact during storage, distribution, point-of-purchase (POP)/point-of-sale (POS), and in- home resuscitation (from non-detect physiological condition) and subsequent growth of bacterial pathogens on diverse products.

Theme 2—Enabling Technologies and Industry-Adaptive Methodology

1. Develop an individual, combination, or suite of functionally validated indicators, surrogates, or analytes for on-site (on-farm and in-house) verification and/or routine monitoring
2. Apply artificial intelligence (AI) -based analytics to identify outbreak-significant and predictive sequence targets among diverse Salmonella found in waters used for crop management
3. Develop cost-acceptable and scientifically valid industry-adaptive test methods to predict and track human-specific fecal pollution of water, soil, and product
4. Proof-of-concept project to assess the performance of rotational or sequential application of non-chlorine based antimicrobial treatments with commercially available lytic phage to reduce risk of bacterial pathogens in recirculated hydroponic and nutrient-film irrigation systems

Theme 3—Critical Data for Standards, Metrics, and Practices

1. Develop a pilot “rapid response” network system for time-sensitive research on industry-host offered field site(s)
2. Develop a systems-based reassessment of plausible risk factors and interventions at preharvest, harvest, curing, holding, post-harvest, processing, and distribution for bulb onions
3. South Texas regional opportunity: Determine the potential for internalized contamination of onions—prioritized to Escherichia coli O157:H7 or other non-O157 Enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC)—as a result of significant rain events during harvest, and the implications of the post-harvest heat curing process and storage on food safety
4. Develop a systems-based reassessment of plausible risk factors and interventions at preharvest, harvest, post-harvest, packing, and distribution for cucumbers or other non-leafy commodities
5. Determine post-harvest wash water constituent and conditions for peracetic acid (PAA) and chlorine dioxide (ClO2) which result in sub-lethally injured cells; “real-world” simulations and on-site factorial conditions under which they resuscitate, grow, exceed the baseline dose threshold risk, and do not/cannot grow but become more infectious; and associated corollary interventions to prevent these outcomes.

Theme 4—Translational “Demonstration” Research for Accelerated Adoption

1. Grower/handler-friendly, onsite, data-informed predictive tools to set environmental monitoring program (EMP) best practices for harvest equipment and packing facilities.
2. Reassess the impact of post-harvest water temperature, constituent complexity, antimicrobial dose, and contact time on product surface risk reduction.
3. Determine the effectiveness and limitations of varying wash and cooling water agitation designs and practices on removal of attached microbes.
4. Assess the potential for trace levels of Salmonella in post-processed manure pellets to amplify under commercial-equivalent field conditions following surface application, preplant incorporation, and side-dressing applications in response to direct spray application to soil and seedbeds and fertigation with other biofertilizers and biostimulants.
5. Develop best practice optimization for detection of integrity breaches and microbiological/biofilm risk in subsurface agricultural water conveyance and distribution systems (of different scales) during agricultural water quality assessments; and assess detection, correction, and prevention best practices across sub-surface distribution conveyance nodes and whole-system risk associated with bio-fertigation and flood events

Additionally, CPS identified secondary priority topics, which are to:

• Identify opportunities and systems to better ensure effective cleaning, sanitation, and handing of harvest totes/bins with an emphasis on commodity-variable practical frequencies
• Expand the practical database for best practices in hygienic design, cleaning, and sanitation
• Frequency in sanitation standard operation procedure (SSOP) systems for wax application and polishing brushes and immediately contiguous food contact surfaces
• Resolve the anecdotal and empirical evidence, by historical and contemporary data analytics, as well as under science-based experimental design objectives, that the first onset of outbreaks cases associated with cucurbit crops is predominantly associated with the first harvest of a lot.

Researchers interested in submitting a proposal are encouraged to engage with CPS in advance to better understand industry needs and ensure alignment. Confidential pre-submission discussions have proven invaluable for successful proposals, per CPS.

CPS will also consider proposals outside the stated priorities if they present credible, “game-changing” approaches; however, such projects should have clear applicability to current or foreseeable industry practices, and researchers proposing such projects are strongly encouraged to consult CPS.

The full CPS Research Priorities document can be accessed here. The 2026 Request for Proposals can be accessed here.