A recent survey of the low-moisture food industry and relevant stakeholders has revealed the sector’s key food safety challenges and research needs. The study was supported by a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food Agriculture (USDA-NIFA) grant.

Low-moisture foods, defined as those with a water activity of 0.85 or less, have been involved in multiple, significant foodborne illness outbreaks in recent years; most notably, the 2022 foodborne illness outbreak linked to infant formula contaminated by Cronobacter sakazakii and the subsequent supply shortage. Other incidents have involved flour, powdered infant formula, peanut butter, and dried coconut. Recent research has estimated that flour-related foodborne illnesses alone cost the U.S. around $108 million annually. 

Additionally, because many low-moisture foods are sold ready-to-eat (RTE), many consumers are unaware of the food safety considerations of the category and do not adequately handle the foods.

In this context, the present study¹ aimed to explore the food safety culture and education needs, identify the food safety challenges and data gaps, and understand the barriers to adopting food-safety-enhancing technologies in the U.S. low-moisture food industry. Based on the responses of an industrywide survey, needs related to food safety culture, sanitation, pathogen reduction, and technology were revealed.

Food Safety Culture 

The study found that, at present, food safety culture is widely perceived as a shared value ingrained at all levels, with everyone aware of their responsibilities. Leadership plays a key role in setting goals and allocating resources, while frontline employees are encouraged to voice concerns and take action when needed. A balanced "top-down" and "bottom-up" feedback system ensures that both leadership's vision and employees' practical experiences inform decision-making.

Establishing a positive food safety culture faces three main barriers:

• Limited resources
• Difficulties in risk communication
• Challenges in achieving behavioral change.

Organizations often struggle with financial constraints, time limitations, and a lack of multi-language training resources. Communicating food safety risks is difficult, especially in low-moisture foods, which are perceived as safe, making it hard to shift mindsets. Ensuring that employees consistently follow proper food safety practices is another challenge, as knowledge does not always translate into behavior. Addressing these issues requires innovative training approaches and a focus on behavior-based food safety programs.

Cleaning, Sanitation, and Hygienic Design

The major challenges in cleaning, sanitation, and hygienic design for low-moisture food production revealed in the study include the lack of effective dry cleaning guidance and the difficulty in creating sanitation clean breaks.

Some facilities face additional obstacles due to legacy systems that were not designed with food safety in mind, making modernization costly and disruptive. There is a need for more detailed, industry-specific guidelines for cleaning and sanitation. Another critical challenge is ensuring proper hygienic design. Addressing these issues requires filling data gaps and fostering collaboration among industry, academia, and regulators to develop comprehensive standards.

Pathogen Reduction

Shown in the study, the low-moisture food industry faces several challenges in pathogen reduction, including:

• Insufficient understanding of microbial dynamics in dry environments
• Difficulties with process validation
• Limited food safety-enhancing technologies.

Pathogens like Salmonella can survive for extended periods in low-moisture conditions, and lab research often does not translate well to large-scale operations. Validation studies are crucial for ensuring microbial control, but gaps in knowledge about appropriate surrogate organisms and process-specific safe harbors complicate such studies. There is also a lack of standardized validation protocols for different equipment and insufficient training for personnel in these studies. Additionally, barriers to adopting novel food safety technologies remain, limiting their widespread use.

Adoption of Food Safety Technology

Five major barriers to adopting food safety-enhancing technologies in the low-moisture food industry were identified in the study:

• Budgetary priorities
• Operational constraints
• Technology validation
• Consumer acceptance
• Maintaining product quality.

Production feasibility, cost, and equipment compatibility are key challenges, especially when new technologies offer only marginal safety improvements. Participants also highlighted the difficulty of validating new equipment and concerns about consumer resistance to processing technologies like irradiation, as well as reluctance to pay for increased product safety. Non-thermal methods like high-pressure processing (HPP) and cold plasma show promise, but they are difficult to scale for low-moisture foods.

Overall, the results of this study highlight the need for further research and collaboration among industry, academia, and government agencies to develop more effective strategies for improving food safety in low-moisture foods.

References

1. Han, C., Anderson N.M., Feng, Y., Grasso-Kelley, E.M., Harris, L.J., Marks, B.P., McGowen, L., Scharff, R.L., Subbiah, J., Tang, J., Wu, F., “Food Safety Research and Extension Needs for the U.S. Low-Moisture Food Industry,” Journal of Food Protection (2024). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfp.2024.100358.