Microbiological Control

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The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly shifted consumer demand away from restaurants and foodservice to home meals and ready-to-eat (RTE) meat and poultry products. As a complement for more convenience-type items, consumers began focusing on product expiration dates to limit trips to retail markets. Combined with consumers' nutritional focus on sugar, sodium, fat content, and additives, meeting these expectations and requirements is a serious challenge for meat and poultry processors. The most common challenges for reformulation are reduction of sodium and replacing additives such as nitrite and preservatives.

Pthotrak’s Rapid Pathogen Detection Enrichment Technology is the first AOAC-certified product to enable pathogen results within an eight-hour shift. 

Regardless of whether or not cooks wash their poultry or not before cooking it, bacterial contamination is rampant in the kitchen, a recent study finds.

The Codex Alimentarius Committee has drafted a new guidance for the management of microbiological foodborne illness outbreaks at the recent Committee on Food Hygiene meeting.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) launched a new webpage with resources and information to combat Salmonella in poultry.

The Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia has improved the accuracy of DNA sequence analysis when testing for microbial contamination.

This column will expand on the findings of the FDA study of the economic evaluation of the GenomeTrakr whole genome sequencing (WGS) program, adding data on the use of sequencing and how it will continue to change food safety practices and markets. It will also discuss what FDA is doing with GenomeTrackr to uncover previously unseen outbreaks and how this is keeping pressure on processors to expand environmental monitoring and controls.

This article addresses the sources, risk, and management of marine biotoxins found in molluscan shellfish and methods to identify contaminated shellfish meat before marketing. The authors also present an update to the online learning module developed to provide current National Shellfish Sanitation Program marine biotoxin management requirements for molluscan shellfish intended for interstate commerce.

Berries sold in Norway tested positive for several parasites between 2019 and 2020, suggesting that better contamination control is needed.

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.