Researchers and Industry Partners to Study Microbial Hazards of Novel Plant-Based Ingredients
A consortium of public and private industry and academic partners is carrying out a multi-year research project aimed at investigating the potential food safety and quality risks of microbial contaminants in plant-based food products, such as dairy alternatives.
Novel plant-based ingredients often contain unknown types and levels of microbes, and there is a significant gap in knowledge about the risks of such microbial contaminants. Many plant-based proteins come from crops that are sourced close to the soil and can be contaminated by a wide range of organisms, such as spore-forming bacteria that may survive heat treatments. Various microbes can also be introduced during harvesting and storage, or during the plant protein manufacturing process. These factors complicate the design of efficient processing conditions and stable product formulations, as well as effective investigations when microbiological contamination occurs in finished products.