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Dear Colleagues,

Current world changes have led to the re-emergence of many foodborne pathogens. The globalization of food markets, for example, has increased the challenge to manage the microbial risks. This Special Issue will contribute to identify potential innovative approaches for the development of new microbiologically safe foods and provide the basic principles of food toxicology, food processing, food safety as well as hygiene of retail and household food handling to prevent food borne illness outbreaks. Despite advances in hygiene, food treatment, and food processing, diseases caused by foodborne pathogens continue to constitute a worldwide public health concern Ensuring food safety to protect public health remains a significant challenge in both developing and developed nations. “Food Hygiene and Human Health” accepts papers concerning food safety risks and assurance of a safe food system.

Prof. Dr. Fernando Perez Rodriguez
Dr. Wojciech Kolanowski
Guest Editors

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Keywords

food hygiene
food safety
food microbiology
foodborne pathogen
human health

Published Papers (1 paper)

Research

Open AccessArticle

Presence and Persistence of Listeria monocytogenes in the Danish Ready-to-Eat Food Production Environment

Nao Takeuchi-Storm

Lisbeth Truelstrup Hansen

Niels Ladefoged Nielsen

and

Jens Kirk Andersen

Hygiene 2023, 3(1), 18-32; https://doi.org/10.3390/hygiene3010004 - 01 Feb 2023

Viewed by 1016

Abstract

Listeria monocytogenes is an ubiquitously occurring foodborne bacterial pathogen known to contaminate foods during the production processes. To assess the presence and persistence of L. monocytogenes in Danish ready-to-eat (RTE) food production companies in response to a Listeria awareness campaign, the production environment of selected companies were sampled in 2016 and in 2020. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) was performed to characterize the isolates (n = 50, plus 35 isolates obtained from the routine surveillance during 2016–2020), including investigation of the presence of virulence, persistence and resistance genes. The number of companies that tested positive by culture was 17/39 (43.6%) in 2016 and 11/34 (32.4%) in 2020, indicating a limited effect of the campaign. WGS analyses of the 85 isolates showed that the most common sequence types (STs) were ST8 and ST121. The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis showed that isolates coming from the same company and belonging to the same ST exhibited <10 SNP differences regardless of the sampling year and whether the samples came from the environment or products, indicating the persistence of the specific STs. Several prevalent STs were found in clinical cases concurrently, including genetically similar isolates. This highlights the issue of persistent L. monocytogenes in the food production environment and the need for improved risk communication and mitigation strategies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Hygiene and Human Health)

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