In the U.S. between 2011 and 2023, non-dairy fermented foods (NDFFs) caused 39 foodborne illness outbreaks, resulting in 509 illnesses, 132 hospitalizations, and four deaths, according to a new analysis.
The analysis was authored by researchers with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Human Foods Program (FDA’s HFP) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Disease (CDC’s NCEZID) and was published in the Journal of Food Protection. It provides novel information on NDFF outbreaks that can be used to better understand the safety of this food type and inform microbiological contamination control efforts.