Fresh Produce Safety and Quality: Chlorine Dioxide’s Role

Maintaining microbial safety and quality of fresh fruits and vegetables are a global concern. Harmful microbes can contaminate fresh produce at any stage from farm to fork. Microbial contamination can affect the quality and shelf-life of fresh produce, and the consumption of contaminated food can cause foodborne illnesses. Additionally, there has been an increased emphasis on the freshness and appearance of fresh produce by modern consumers. Hence, disinfection methods that not only reduce microbial load but also preserve the quality of fresh produce are required. Chlorine dioxide (ClO2) has emerged as a better alternative to chlorine-based disinfectants. In this review, we discuss the efficacy of gaseous and aqueous ClO2 in inhibiting microbial growth immediately after treatment (short-term effect) versus regulating microbial growth during storage of fresh produce (long-term effect). We further elaborate upon the effects of ClO2 application on retaining or enhancing the quality of fresh produce and discuss the current understanding of the mode of action of ClO2 against microbes affecting fresh produce.

Assessing Consumer Awareness and Opinion Toward Food Safety Practices and Policies in the Maldives

The Maldives relies completely on imported food for its staples such as rice, flour, and sugar. It is reported that the Maldives produces less than one-tenth of its overall food requirements. Due to its huge dependence on imported food products, Maldives is exposed to a high risk of contaminated food and foodborne illnesses caused within the supply chain. This chapter aimed to investigate the level of awareness among the public of the Maldives relating to food safety practices in the food industry. An online survey was developed and administered to the consumers in the Maldives. A total number of 369 usable responses were analyzed statistically. The findings highlight that even though there was a high level of awareness of the participants towards food safety in general, participants were poorly aware of the activities and the consumers' roles in the food safety practices. This study serves as a baseline study for future research in this area, particularly in the Maldives.

Pathogenic Escherichia coli: An Overview on Pre-Harvest Factors that Impact the Microbial Safety of Leafy Greens

Consumption of fresh leafy greens has been repeatedly reported and linked to pathogenic Escherichia coli-associated foodborne illnesses outbreaks. Leafy greens are mostly eaten raw, based on the increased consumers’ preferences for natural, nutritious diets. Recent studies indicate the incidence of infections caused by pathogenic Escherichia coli remained almost unchanged or even increased. In this context, fresh produces increased the awareness about their primary contamination level, namely the pre-harvest phase. Fully eliminating pathogenic Escherichia coli from pre-harvest environment proved to be impossible. Emphasis must be placed on the pre-harvest factors that affect the food safety and, subsequently, on the identification of possible mitigation strategies that can be used on-farm for reducing the risk of leafy greens contamination with pathogenic Escherichia coli.

Advances in traceability systems in agri-food supply chains

Failure to deliver safe and high-quality food reduces consumer confidence in the food industry and results in costly food crises, foodborne illnesses and disruption to food supply chains. Recent advances in traceability systems, and associated identification and communication technologies hold the potential to ensure food quality and safety by managing effective traceability throughout the food supply chains. However, deficits in various factors e.g., resources, awareness, training, standards, data management and technology scaling impede exploitation of these cutting-edge traceability technologies. This chapter provides a review of the advances in agri-food traceability systems and technologies, barriers to their implementations, and possible improvement pathways and policy interventions to promote deployment of advanced food traceability systems.

Prevalence and Characterization of Quinolone Resistance in Campylobacter spp. Isolates in Chicken Livers from Retail Stores in Georgia, USA

Campylobacter is the leading bacterial pathogen that causes human foodborne illnesses worldwide and outbreaks have been associated with consumption of under-cooked chicken livers. The objectives of this study were to compare two PCR assays for speciation of 250 Campylobacter isolates, to assess antibiotic resistance of the isolates, and to analyze genetic diversity of the quinolone resistance determining regions (QRDR) of the isolates. Speciation was performed in a double-blind manner, and results showed that 181 (72%) isolates were identified as Campylobacter jejuni and 69 (28%) isolates were identified as Campylobacter coli by both PCR assays. A total of 93 (37.2%) isolates were determined to be resistant to at least one antibiotic. Among 88 C. jejuni isolates, 33 isolates (18%) were resistant to nalidixic acid (NAL) and ciprofloxacin (CIP), followed by 25 (14%) isolates resistant to tetracycline (TET) and 18 (10%) isolates resistant to NAL and TET. Two isolates were resistant to four antibiotics tested. One isolate was resistant to five antibiotics tested. For C. coli, two isolates were resistant to TET, and two were resistant to NAL, CIP and TET. The amino acid sequences of the QRDR regions among the isolates revealed eight point mutations and could be classified into 12 groups. Thirty-eight C. jejuni isolates resistant to NAL and CIP had a point mutation at residue 86 (Thr to Ile substitution). However, six isolates without the substitution at the same position were resistant to NAL and/or CIP. In addition, 10 isolates with a point mutation at residue 86 were susceptible to NAL and CIP. This observation suggests that besides the substitution at 86, other mechanisms may confer resistance to quinolones. Further studies are needed to elucidate mechanisms for quinolone resistance in Campylobacter. Based on our results, the Campylobacter spp. isolated from chicken livers were found to be resistant to the quinolones and other classes of antibiotics.

Smart Beef-Quality Tracking In Malaysia Using Blockchain Technology

Concerns and awareness on beef quality and safety are increasing among the consumers. Beef that is being served to the customers has to be of good quality and safe to eat, as well as to prevent foodborne illnesses. Hence, it is important to ensure good meat quality during the process of beef production. The existing beef supply chain systems lack transparency, as a result, a hike in food frauds has been witnessed in Malaysia. Consequently, it is hard to infer if the beef reaching the consumers is safe and wholesome. Besides that, the existing supply chains have a time-consuming and tiring procedure of product tracking, which is not desirable for consumers and other various stakeholders involved. To mitigate this issue, in this paper, we propose the use of blockchain technology for beef supply chain to maintain the transparency of ingredients and processes used in beef production. This will strengthen the trust of consumer in the company and ensure that the produced beef is contamination free and healthy. The study comprehensively highlights the feasibility blockchain technology to be implemented in the beef supply chain to make it transparent, secure and easily trackable.

Exploiting redox activity of MIL-100(Fe) carrier enables carvacrol prolonged antimicrobial activity

The design of efficient food contact materials that maintain optimal levels of food safety is of paramount relevance to reduce the increasing foodborne illnesses. In this work, we develop a smart composite MOF-based material that fosters a unique prolonged antibacterial activity. The composite is obtained by entrapping a natural preserving food molecule, carvacrol, into the mesoporous MIL-100(Fe) material following a direct and biocompatible impregnation method and obtaining particularly high payloads. By exploiting the intrinsic redox nature of MIL-100(Fe) material it is possible to achieve a prolonged activity against E. coli bacteria due to a triggered two-step carvacrol release of films containing the carvacrol@MOF composite. Essentially, it was discovered that based on the underlying chemical interaction among MIL-100(Fe) and carvacrol, it is possible to undergo a reversible charge transfer process between the metallic MOF counterpart and the carvacrol upon certain physical stimuli. During this process, the preferred carvacrol binding site has been monitored by IR, Mössbauer and EPR spectroscopies and is supported by theoretical calculations.

Crowdsourcing and machine learning approaches for extracting entities indicating potential foodborne outbreaks from social media

Foodborne outbreaks are a serious but preventable threat to public health that often lead to illness, loss of life, significant economic loss, and the erosion of consumer confidence. Understanding how consumers respond when interacting with foods, as well as extracting information from posts on social media may provide new means of reducing the risks and curtailing the outbreaks. In recent years, Twitter has been employed as a new tool for identifying unreported foodborne illnesses. However, there is a huge gap between the identification of sporadic illnesses and the early detection of a potential outbreak. In this work, the dual-task BERTweet model was developed to identify unreported foodborne illnesses and extract foodborne-illness-related entities from Twitter. Unlike previous methods, our model leveraged the mutually beneficial relationships between the two tasks. The results showed that the F1-score of relevance prediction was 0.87, and the F1-score of entity extraction was 0.61. Key elements such as time, location, and food detected from sentences indicating foodborne illnesses were used to analyze potential foodborne outbreaks in massive historical tweets. A case study on tweets indicating foodborne illnesses showed that the discovered trend is consistent with the true outbreaks that occurred during the same period.

Epidemiologic characteristics of Campylobacter infections in high-income countries: a systematic review

Introduction. The Campylobacter is the most common bacterial cause of foodborne illnesses in high-income countries. In contrast to other infectious diseases, the number of Campylobacter cases has increased in developed countries over the last ten years. A systematic review has been conducted to identify the factors contributing to incidence of Campylobacter infection in developed countries and to estimate it by age, sex, geography, and season.Materials and methods. The review was limited to studies published in English from 2010-2021; eight nationwide surveillance and register-based cohort studies, which met the selection criteria, were included in the review.Results. While the highest incidence of Campylobacter infection was reported among young children living in rural areas, the highest number of Campylobacter cases among adults was recorded in urban settings. Nevertheless, population-wise, children and older adults are most affected, while the incidence rates are higher in males than in females, with cases peaking every summer.Conclusion. Campylobacter infection is a public health concern in high-income countries, being difficult to eradicate and having become an urgent challenge to the existing well-developed surveillance systems. Additionally, the threat of antibiotic resistance in Campylobacter is growing at an alarming rate. The reasons behind Campylobacter affecting more men than women as well as the age and geographic distribution of the infection still need thorough research.

Salmonella - foodborne pathogen and antimicrobial resistance

Foodborne diseases encompass a wide spectrum of illnesses and are a growing public health problem worldwide. They are caused by consumption of food or water contaminated by pathogenic (disease-causing) microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses and parasites. The contamination of food can occur at any stage in the process from food production to consumption (“farm to fork”) and can result from environmental contamination (water, soil or air). They enter the body through the gastrointestinal tract where the first symptoms often occur like nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, and diarrhoea. However, symptoms differ among the different types of foodborne diseases and the patient’s immune status. Symptoms can sometimes be severe and some foodborne illnesses can even be fatal. Commonly recognized foodborne infections are: campylobacteriosis, Escherichia coli O157:H7 infection and haemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), salmonellosis, cryptosporidiosis, listeriosis, giardiasis. norovirus infection, scombroid fish poisoning, shigellosis, toxoplasmosis, Vibrio infection and yersiniosis. One of the top three germs that cause illnesses from food eaten in EU is Salmonella.