Search Results (1,103)

Foodborne pathogens remain a major public health challenge, particularly in the context of antimicrobial resistance and persistent contamination across animal, food-processing, and retail environments. This review examines bacteriophages as precision antimicrobials for controlling major foodborne bacteria, including Salmonella, Campylobacter, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), Listeria monocytogenes, and Vibrio spp., and summarizes the biological basis of phage-mediated control: strictly lytic life cycles, receptor-specific adsorption, direct bacterial killing, biofilm disruption, and resistance-associated fitness trade-offs. It further discusses pre-harvest, post-harvest, and processing-environment applications, with emphasis on matrix-dependent efficacy, delivery strategies, commercial products, and regulatory status. While bacteriophages offer high specificity and may help preserve the native microbiome, their integration into multi-hurdle food-safety systems require careful validation because their performance is influenced by narrow host ranges, bacterial resistance, food-matrix effects, formulation constraints, and regulatory complexity and scale-up challenges. Broader implementation will require rationally designed phage-cocktails, thorough genomic safety screening, matrix-specific validation studies, scalable manufacturing processes, and continuous monitoring for post-application resistance. Overall, bacteriophages should be viewed as promising but context-dependent adjuncts to validated food-safety and One Health frameworks, rather than stand-alone solution for reducing foodborne pathogen burdens. Full article

Drug recall is a critical regulatory mechanism implemented to protect public health by removing defective, unsafe, or non-compliant pharmaceutical products from the market. Despite stringent regulatory approval processes, issues related to manufacturing defects, contamination, labeling errors, stability failures, and post-marketing safety concerns may lead to drug recalls. Regulatory authorities across the world, including the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and other national agencies, have developed structured recall guidelines and rapid alert systems to ensure timely withdrawal of defective products. Drug recalls are typically classified based on the level of health risk and may be executed at different levels of the distribution chain, including wholesale, retail, and consumer levels. Effective recall management involves risk assessment, recall communication, product traceability, documentation, and recall effectiveness checks. Pharmacovigilance systems also play an important role in identifying adverse drug reactions and quality defects that may lead to product recalls. This review article provides a comprehensive overview of drug recall systems, including causes of recalls, regulatory frameworks in India and other countries, recall classification, recall procedures, rapid alert systems, and global recall trends. The article also discusses challenges in recall implementation and provides recommendations to strengthen drug recall systems and regulatory coordination worldwide. The review additionally summarizes major official sources of recall information, including recall alerts, safety communications, and regulatory databases maintained by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), EMA, CDSCO, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and World Health Organization (WHO), and provides a comparative global perspective on contemporary pharmaceutical recall practices. Full article

The emergence of New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase (NDM)-producing Escherichia coli (E. coli) in the food production chain poses a serious public health threat. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and molecular characteristics of blaNDM-carrying E. coli along the chicken production chain (farms, slaughterhouses, and supermarkets) in Jiangsu Province, China. Between 2023 and 2025, 408 samples were collected, recovering 39 blaNDM-positive E. coli isolates (9.56%). Isolation rates were 10.4% (26/250) in farms, 10.1% (11/108) in slaughterhouses, and 4.0% (2/50) in supermarkets. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) identified blaNDM-5 as the dominant variant, alongside the first detection of blaNDM-13 in local farm environments. All isolates exhibited high-level resistance to meropenem (MIC: 16–128 μg/mL) and universal resistance (100%) to ampicillin, cefoxitin, ceftiofur, and sulfisoxazole. Notably, 41.03% and 7.69% of strains co-harbored the polymyxin resistance gene mcr-1.1 and the tigecycline resistance gene tet(X4), respectively. Isolates carried an average of 19.5 antimicrobial resistance genes, with IncFIB (AP001918) (82.05%) identified as the dominant plasmid replicon. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) revealed 18 distinct sequence types (STs), with ST156 and ST155 being the most prevalent. Phylogenetic analysis confirmed slaughterhouses as critical hubs for cross-contamination, evidenced by shared STs (ST1158, ST155, ST162) and minimal SNP differences (1–11) between environment and carcass isolates. Furthermore, the detection of clinically relevant ST10 and ST69 clones in supermarket retail chicken meat underscores a direct foodborne transmission risk to humans. These findings highlight the poultry supply chain as a significant reservoir of multidrug-resistant blaNDM-positive E. coli. Accordingly, we recommend enhanced biosecurity protocols and stricter restrictions and controls on antimicrobial use in broiler farms. Full article

Communities under prolonged disruptions operate as interconnected socio-technical systems in which the effectiveness of any response depends not only on local conditions but also on the structural relationships that link communities to one another. This study introduces an agent-based response framework for evaluating policy-driven intervention strategies across such systems. Each community is described by its population, economic conditions, and access to critical services, and is linked to other communities through a social connectivity network that defines the pathways for population movement and channels the spread of disruption stress between regions. The agent-based model then tracks how vulnerable each community is by combining its local conditions with the conditions of the communities it is most connected to, and it measures the toll of any disruption through a single social cost metric that weighs lost access to healthcare, retail, and food services. The framework is instantiated using county-level COVID-19 data for Illinois, treated as an exogenous hazard input, and evaluated through Monte Carlo simulation across risk-averse, risk-neutral, risk-seeking, adaptive, and no-aid policy regimes. Compared with the no-aid baseline, the highest-intensity (risk-averse) regime produced the lowest social cost and the highest level of assistance, while all intervention regimes resulted in lower migration. Adaptive managerial decision-making was shown to offer no consistent advantage over simple proactive rules, suggesting that consistency and speed of allocation, rather than sophistication, drive system-wide outcomes. Full article

This study examines the retail food environment surrounding public schools in Michigan using a multiscale, multidimensional framework. A cross-sectional spatial analysis integrates relative healthfulness (modified Retail Food Environment Index, mRFEI), availability (outlet counts), and accessibility (network-based walking time) across school districts, census tracts, block groups, and school-centered buffers. The analysis includes 3530 public schools, 7680 fast food restaurants, and 2065 convenience stores. Results show pronounced spatial heterogeneity and clustering of unhealthful outlets (Nearest Neighbor Index = 0.284, p < 0.001), with many located near schools. Approximately 34% of schools are within a 10 min walk of a fast food restaurant, increasing to 65% within a 20 min walk. Urban schools face significantly greater exposure—2.27–2.80 times more fast food outlets and shorter walking times than rural schools (p ≤ 0.002)—with consistent gradients across city, suburban, town, and rural contexts. Overall, school neighborhood food environments are highly structured, obesogenic, and inequitable. By integrating multiple spatial scales and complementary measures of food environments, this study advances food environment research and provides policy-relevant evidence for targeted, place-based interventions to improve access to healthier food around schools. Full article

Salmonella remains one of the most critical zoonotic pathogens in the poultry sector, linked to animal disease, foodborne illness, and the global crisis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Poultry acts as a major reservoir, enabling Salmonella transmission from hatchery to retail products through horizontal, vertical, and environmental routes. Despite the use of biosecurity, vaccination, antibiotics, and chemical decontamination, effective and sustainable control across the poultry value chain remains difficult, particularly in the face of rising multidrug-resistant strains and growing consumer concerns over chemical residues. Bacteriophages (phages), viruses that selectively infect and lyse bacteria, have emerged as a promising biological alternative for Salmonella control. Although many studies have reported the effectiveness of phages against bacterial species, including Salmonella, in the poultry industry, reports on their full potential to combat antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella across the entire poultry value chain remain limited. Therefore, this review synthesizes current evidence on the application of phages throughout the poultry value chain, including on-farm interventions, processing plant decontamination, and food packaging and storage. Findings from the reviewed articles indicate over a 90% reduction in Salmonella spp. in poultry farms and post-harvest meat, along with lower mortality in phage-treated groups compared to untreated groups; however, these outcomes depend on several factors (e.g., phage strains, concentrations, application methods, and environmental conditions). Laboratory, pilot, and field studies consistently demonstrate that phage preparations, especially when formulated as cocktails or combined with complementary interventions, can achieve substantial reductions in Salmonella, including antibiotic-resistant serovars, in live birds, eggs, poultry environments, and meat products. Unlike antibiotics and chemical sanitizers, phages act with high specificity, preserving beneficial microbiota and maintaining the sensory and nutritional quality of poultry products. Their safety has been supported by toxicological and genomic assessments, and several phage-based products have obtained regulatory approval, including Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status for food applications in the United States. By integrating efficacy, safety, regulatory, and practical deployment data, this review highlights bacteriophages as a scientifically validated and One Health–aligned tool capable of reducing Salmonella transmission from farm to fork across the poultry value chain, thereby laying the foundation for their future adoption in the poultry industry. Phage-based interventions offer a sustainable pathway to enhance food safety, limit antimicrobial resistance (AMR) dissemination, and strengthen consumer confidence in poultry products. However, the major limitation is the emergence of phage-resistant bacterial strains, as well as the potential involvement of some phages in the transfer of resistance and virulence genes, which could raise public concern. Nevertheless, the use of phage cocktails and whole-genome sequencing, involving tools such as ResFinder and virulence finder, can facilitate the selection of safe phages for application. Full article

The rapid expansion of molecular point-of-care (POC) diagnostics into decentralized settings, including emergency departments, retail pharmacies, and home environments, has shifted the burden of diagnostic performance from laboratory professionals to heterogeneous, often non-expert users. While traditional evaluation frameworks focus on analytical and clinical validity, they often overlook the impact of human-system interactions on real-world reliability. This review introduces the concept of Operational Validity: the ability of a diagnostic system to preserve its intended performance when operated by intended users within the constraints of real-world workflows and environments. To establish a rigorous foundation for this concept, this study provides a critical comparative analysis contrasting Operational Validity against traditional clinical evaluation dimensions (analytical validity, clinical validity, and clinical utility) and post-market metrics. While existing literature outlines isolated usability principles, the significance of this study lies in its synthesis of these fragmented concepts into a formalized, lifecycle-based “Operational Validity” framework that explicitly maps the causal mechanisms connecting initial user interaction directly to downstream clinical outcomes. By synthesizing international standards (IEC 62366-1) alongside the newly finalized May 2026 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance on the Content of Human Factors Information in Medical Device Marketing Submissions, we examine how human factors engineering (HFE) and usability engineering serve as the methodological foundation for operational validity. We analyze the specific complexities of molecular workflows, identify key parameters of use-related failure modes in pre-analytical and interpretation stages, and detail the mandatory role of iterative formative and final summative usability testing in mitigating these risks. Finally, we propose a lifecycle-based approach to HFE that integrates design, simulated-use validation, and post-market surveillance. Establishing operational validity is essential to ensure that the high analytical sensitivity of molecular POC platforms translates into consistent clinical utility across the full spectrum of decentralized care. Full article

The increasing consumption of fresh organic produce has given rise to concerns regarding the microbiological safety of minimally processed foods. Organic cultivation may be associated with increased exposure to environmental microorganisms due to soil-based inputs and reduced chemical interventions, including both beneficial taxa and potential foodborne pathogens. Fresh produce is known to harbour complex microbial ecosystems, which are shaped by farming practices, plant physiology, handling, packaging and storage, particularly in raw-consumed products such as leafy greens and strawberries. In this study, bacterial (16S rRNA) and eukaryotic (18S rRNA) communities were characterized by amplicon sequencing. In parallel, an amoeba-associated bacterial microbiome was analyzed and DVC-FISH was used to assess the viability and metabolic activity of pathogenic bacteria internalized within free-living amoebae (FLA). No significant differences in alpha or beta diversity were observed between organic and conventional products, suggesting microbiome convergence at the retail stage driven by post-harvest handling and processing. Potentially pathogenic genera, including Pseudomonas, Stenotrophomonas, and Acinetobacter (bacterial), as well as Tilletiopsis, Candida, and Naegleria (eukaryotic), were identified in both organic and non-organic microbiomes. The viability of FLA-internalized Pseudomonas spp. was confirmed by DVC-FISH, demonstrating that FLA act as reservoirs, enhancing pathogen persistence in fresh produce. This integrated assessment of organic and conventional fruits and vegetables at the retail stage highlights the importance of post-harvest handling and retail conditions in shaping microbiological safety. The integration of microbiome profiling with targeted viability analyses demonstrates that downstream stages are critical control points for food safety and consumer exposure, beyond the influence of the production system alone. Full article

To promote the sustainable development of agriculture and reduce resource waste, this paper investigates sustainable financing strategies for a green fresh agri-food supply chain. We employ a purely theoretical Stackelberg game model and numerical simulations based on hypothetical parameters to develop three financing models for a supply chain consisting of one capital-constrained farmer and one retailer, considering consumers’ dual sensitivity to product freshness and greenness. Analytical and numerical results reveal that: (1) with low financing rates, internal financing effectively alleviates under investment in preservation, leading to higher wholesale/retail prices. In a green-sensitive market, the resulting price premium compensates for cost increases, avoiding the “low quality–low price” trap under external financing. (2) The retailer’s total profit decreases as the internal financing rate rises; higher interest income cannot offset demand loss caused by reduced preservation effort. Thus, a low- or zero-interest strategy maximizes the retailer’s operational profit. (3) As consumer sensitivity to freshness and greenness increases, profit growth under internal financing displays convexity. However, under extremely high freshness sensitivity, external financing yields stronger marginal incentives, suggesting that retailers should adjust profit allocation in the high-end market. The findings provide theoretical guidance for financing mode selection and practical insights for promoting green agricultural sustainable development. Full article

Recently, the problem of food waste management has attracted the attention of producers, processors, retailers, and consumers due to economic, environmental, food safety, and sustainability consequences, affecting the entire food supply chain. This article reviews data on food waste of animal origin at different stages along the production and transformation systems, from an environmental, economic, or social perspective. Results show differences between developed and developing countries. While in developed countries, most waste occurs at the end of the food chain, in developing countries, most waste occurs in primary production and transportation. Food waste is very expressive in production and retail, but also in final consumption in households and food services. Mitigating measures include upcycling, i.e., recovering valuable food components for industrial use with economic and environmental benefits, and alternatives for food waste reutilization. The role of the consumer is unquestionable, particularly when shopping for food for the household or when consuming food in restaurants or canteens. Hence, it is crucial to understand the behaviours leading to food waste as a way to reduce it and implement strategies to effectively reduce food waste at various levels. The role of education, regulation, and policies is pivotal in achieving minimal food waste. Full article

Acrylamide (AA) is a contaminant with carcinogenic and genotoxic properties that occur in heat-produced food products. This study aimed to evaluate the occurrence of AA in different coffee products commercially sold in retail markets of Costa Rica and to develop a probabilistic exposure assessment model to assess the potential human health risk due to its consumption. The average AA concentration in the coffee samples analyzed (n = 110) was 110.29 ± 151.61 µg kg⁻¹. The mean dietary exposure (DE) values, for the middle-bound (MB) approach, varied from 0.025 to 0.083 µg kg⁻¹ BW per day. The margin of exposure (MOE) was calculated with a BDML₁₀: 430 μg kg⁻¹ BW day⁻¹ for neurotoxicity and 170 μg kg⁻¹ BW day⁻¹ for cancer effect, according to EFSA (2015). No neurotoxicity risk was identified as MOE values ranged from 4291 to 467,984 for the adult male population, from 4566 to 477,203 for the adult females, from 4265 to 506,062 for the male minors and from 2512 to 495,151 for the female minors. On the other hand, MOE values for the carcinogenic risk were below 10,000 for the mean and P95th coffee consumers, denoting a possible health concern. The values ranged from 1696 to 6717 for the adult male population, from 1805 to 7201 for the female adults, from 1686 to 6304 for the male minors and from 993 to 2155 for the female minors. The mean incremental lifetime cancer risk (ILCR) values for male adult, female adult, male minor, and female minor were 1.7 × 10⁻⁵, 1.6 × 10⁻⁵, 1.9 × 10⁻⁵, and 3.9 × 10⁻⁵, respectively, for the MB approach. These results denote a potential or considerable risk in consumption of coffee due to AA intake. Thus, no neurotoxicity risk was identified; however, a potential carcinogenic risk was observed based on MOE and ILCR results. Full article

Recirculating organic byproducts like food waste, wastewater and manure efficiently and at scale in a circular bioeconomy will be critical to ensuring future food security, energy security, climate resilience, water security and environmental health. Ultimately, we will not be able to live within the safe operating space of our planetary boundaries if we do not stop our wasteful and inefficient habits. Our food, waste, energy and water sectors are starting to transform towards circularity, driven by a diverse range of drivers, from net zero emissions targets, to food waste policies, and to rising fertiliser prices and geopolitical risks. However, these sectors are often not transforming in a coordinated manner, risking unintended consequences like competition between end-uses, technology lock-in, the prevention of scalability, or failure to achieve key sustainability targets, causing rebound effects. For example, society’s organic waste is being earmarked for the production of bioenergy, sustainable aviation fuels, biomaterials, and biofertilisers; however, it is not clear if there will be a sufficient supply of organic waste to meet these diverse demands. Phosphorus flow analyses indicate that we will need to secure almost all of the nutrients in organic waste as fertiliser raw material to produce food. There are some existing pockets of innovation within sectors related to food waste, water and wastewater, fertilisers and agriculture, and bioenergy. However, many initiatives are being driven by short-term challenges, are not operating at scale, or are not sufficiently integrated across sectors. In this paper, we provide examples of innovations and challenges from around the world, including Italy, Australia, Sri Lanka, the UK, Japan, and Malawi. This paper identifies a pathway to navigate tensions to achieve co-existing sustainability goals, including key enablers and barriers, ranging from overcoming regulatory fragmentation to a lack of capital investments. Creating a truly viable circular economy for organic byproducts requires the integration of policies, markets, technologies and people. This means engaging diverse stakeholders, from local councils and private waste contractors, farmers, and fertiliser companies to energy retailers and wastewater utilities, NGOs, informal collectors, and environmental regulators and policy-makers. Full article

The integrity of halal supply chains is increasingly threatened by fragmented paper-based records, certificate fraud, and the absence of real-time traceability. This paper presents HalalChain, a blockchain-based halal product traceability system that enforces role-based access control (RBAC) through three Solidity smart contracts deployed on an Ethereum-compatible blockchain. HalalChain is designed for production deployment on an EVM-compatible Layer-2 or sidechain such as Polygon or BNB Chain, on which the contracts run without code changes. A dual-storage architecture synchronises every supply chain event to both a PostgreSQL relational database and the blockchain, balancing on-chain immutability with off-chain query performance. The system supports five stakeholder roles, namely administrator, supplier, manufacturer, logistics, and retailer, each restricted to specific supply chain event types enforced at the smart contract level. Consumers can verify product halal status and full supply chain history by scanning a QR code linked to a public verification endpoint that cross-checks database records against on-chain event counts, producing a chain-integrity indicator. As the current chain-integrity check is count-base, it can detect missing or extra database rows, but it cannot detect content-level modification if the row count remains unchanged. A total of 107 automated test cases were executed covering functional correctness, edge cases, end-to-end integration, and gas performance benchmarks. Core smart contract operations consume between 25,365 and 213,684 gas units, indicating feasible deployability on Ethereum-compatible networks. An exploratory analysis was carried out with a preliminary survey of 40 respondents (mean = 4.10 on a 5-point Likert scale), suggesting that consumer demand for blockchain-verified halal certification is encouraging. The results demonstrate that HalalChain provides a tamper-evident, role-enforced traceability foundation for the halal food industry. The system secures the digital chain of custody cryptographically and the physical–digital binding between the QR code, and the product remains a separate trust assumption requiring complementary anti-tamper mechanisms. Full article

The study aimed to evaluate the nutritional contribution of essential elements (Ca, Fe, K, Mg, Zn) and assess health risks associated with potentially toxic elements (Cd, Pb, As, Al, and Sr) in three types of cheese from retail chains and produced by two different producers. One hundred forty-four cheese samples were collected in 12 months. All samples were analyzed using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The average concentrations of Ca, Fe, K, Mg, Zn, Al and Sr in cheese samples were 4183.87–6227.98 mg/kg, 1.00–1.63 mg/kg, 695.90–884.39 mg/kg, 175.00–255.70 mg/kg, 21.49–27.56 mg/kg, 2.65–5.73 mg/kg and 1.91–5.82, respectively, depending on cheese type and producers. Concentrations of As, Cd and Pb in all analyzed samples were below the limit of detection (LOD). From a nutritional perspective, the analyzed cheeses represented important dietary sources of calcium and zinc, with substantial contributions to recommended daily intakes, particularly under the higher consumption scenario (100 g/day). Magnesium also contributed meaningfully to dietary intake, especially in children, whereas the contributions of iron and potassium remained relatively low in all evaluated consumption scenarios. Health risk assessment was expressed as the percentage of the tolerable daily intake (%TDI) or provisional tolerable weekly intake (%PTWI). Under the higher consumption scenario (100 g/day), children represented the most highly exposed population group, with %PTWI values for aluminum ranging from 0.25 to 9.10% and %TDI values for strontium ranging from 6.92 to 20.00%, depending on cheese type and producer. Overall, the analyzed cheeses showed high nutritional value and low toxicological risk; however, continuous monitoring of potentially toxic elements remains important to ensure food safety. Full article

The grocerant represents an emerging hybrid retail–foodservice format integrating grocery shopping, prepared meals, and in-store dining. Although practically significant, the academic literature remains limited and dispersed. This PRISMA-informed semi-systematic review synthesizes 16 studies—including direct grocerant research and adjacent work on retail innovation, prepared foods, and digital food retail—to clarify the current state of knowledge. The review followed structured database searches, citation tracking, title/abstract screening, and full-text eligibility assessment. Three main perspectives emerged. First, consumer-focused studies emphasize customer experience, food healthiness, multidimensional perceived value (functional, hedonic, social, and financial), brand prestige, in-store dining behavior, and loyalty. Second, strategic research positions grocerants within retail format innovation and competitive convergence between grocery and restaurant sectors. Third, operational perspectives link grocerants to prepared-food systems, retail food environments, and omnichannel transformation. Major gaps include limited operational and comparative research, geographic concentration, and weak digital integration. The review suggests that grocerants function as evolving systems where convenience, experience, branding, and digital transformation converge. Full article