Management

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In the first part of this survey (“Foodborne Parasites: An Insidious Threat to Food Safety and Public Health”), we looked in depth at common pathogenic parasites behind foodborne illness outbreaks and assessed the extensive geography of their origin and prevalence. In this concluding part, we look in detail at industry and regulators’ approaches to preventive control and eradication in response to this expansive threat to the global food supply system and its consumers.
 

Experienced food safety professionals are a valuable asset in today’s post-pandemic workforce. Crisis management and response are critical components of a food company’s toolbox.

Foodborne parasitic diseases are often overlooked or neglected in various food safety control schemes, even though they are known to pose a severe threat to human health and are notoriously difficult to detect, diagnose, and treat. This truth may account for this class of foodborne disease-causing agents being left out of the risk assessment equation.

Food companies need to embrace a change in their culture to one of collaboration with their internal colleagues and their equipment and infrastructure supply chain. Public health can only be maintained with safe food, and a culture of hygienic design helps deliver it in a responsible way.  

To improve food safety and reduce the risk of foodborne illness related to meal kits, it is important to evaluate operations with a farm-to-fork lens, ensuring not just the safety of the meal kit itself but also promoting proper handling and preparation by the customer.

The launch of this meat research and discovery program will drive innovations beyond conventional meat processing and will streamline the tracking of foodborne pathogens throughout the meat production chain and evaluations of the efficacy of intervention measures.

In our last column, we revisited some of the testing-related topics we have covered since the inception of Food Safety Insights. This article looks at a few of the other subjects that have made an impact on our markets in these past 5 years.

Implementation of rapid whole-genome sequencing could help transform microbial risk surveillance across the food industry from a surveillance approach to a more preventive approach; one in which we can identify outbreak indicators to predict, and take steps to prevent, a problem before it even occurs.

Marketplace incidents with food colorants: What can we learn from them?

Foreign bodies are a large risk to the food and drink industry with authorities recalling products due to foreign-body contamination. Learn how a strong food safety culture can help a company implement best practices in avoiding such events.