Food Microbiology

Different microbial communities are present in foods and responsible for their spoilage, safety and/or ripening. Microbes are also directly involved in food production and bioprotection. Starter cultures are usually added to raw food matrices, producing a typical flavor and odor. Indeed they can limit the growth of pathogenic microorganisms by substrate competition or by antimicrobic compounds. Microbial communities also produce biofilm in industrial machineries, and contaminate either raw or processed food. To better understand these problems, it is important to identify the relationships between the composition of the microbial community and the processes. Fast, simple, sensitive and specific methods are required to study each food ecosystem and to realize the parameters regulating microorganism growth and interactions. This section will remain focused on the study of microbial processes in food, microbial communities, microbial interactions, microbial detection and antimicrobial resistance.