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New Research on Microbial Contamination and Microbial Safety in the Food Chain

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A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Process Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 August 2024 | Viewed by 4432

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Nevijo Zdolec

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Guest Editor

Department of Hygiene, Technology and Food Safety, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Interests: meat safety; foodborne pathogens; antimicrobials; food safety systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

New microbiological hazards are constantly emerging in food production and processing, changing and threatening food safety. Given the diversity of foods and production processes, specific microorganisms are expected to survive despite all sorts of hurdles. Hurdle technologies are sometimes not sufficient to eliminate the risk of pathogenic microbes resistant to stressors. Therefore, various measures are taken to prevent microbial contamination or reduce their population in/on food or food contact surfaces.

This Special Issue specifically focuses on research centred around microorganism contamination in food production and processing, but also on food safety at the farm level and throughout the food chain. Some other potential topics include the epidemiology of foodborne diseases, on-farm food safety, pathogen transmission in the food chain and molecular epidemiology, the role of biosecurity in microbiological food safety, antimicrobial resistance in the food chain, hurdle technologies, the application of microbes to improve food safety and quality, the antimicrobial activity of microbes, natural and new antimicrobials in food protection, decontamination technologies, and process microbiology.

Dr. Nevijo Zdolec
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

food chain
epidemiology
microorganisms
food safety
hurdle technologies
antimicrobials
interventions

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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10 pages, 275 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Relevance of Meat Juice Seroprevalence and Presence of Yersinia enterocolitica and Salmonella spp. in Pig Tonsils for Risk Management at Slaughter

by Marta Kiš, Dunja Fuštin and Nevijo Zdolec

Processes 2023, 11(8), 2234; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11082234 - 25 Jul 2023

Viewed by 703

Abstract

Salmonella spp. and Yersinia enterocolitica are priority bacteriological public health hazards in pork safety. For more successful control, it is necessary to collect data on their prevalence throughout the meat chain using the concept of harmonized epidemiological indicators. The aim of this study was to determine their prevalence in fattening pigs under different housing conditions by recovering the pathogen from tonsils and by serological testing of diaphragm meat juice at slaughterhouses. The overall prevalence of Salmonella spp. and Y. enterocolitica in tonsils was 9.8% and 6.5%, respectively, with no significant differences between large and small farms (p > 0.05). In general, seroprevalence of Salmonella spp. was 48.35% and of Yersinia 13.18% (p < 0.05) but without significant differences of individual seroprevalence between farm types. No association was found between detection of Salmonella spp. or Y. enterocolitica in tonsils and seroprevalence (φc = 0.121, p = 0.420; φc = 0.027, p = 0.718, respectively). Significantly higher seroprevalence of Salmonella spp. was found on farms with lower biosecurity status (p < 0.05). A higher recovery rate of Salmonella spp. and Y. enterocolitica from the tonsils may be expected in seropositive pigs (OR 1.56–2.36), but without statistical significance. The results showed that Salmonella and Yersinia meat juice serology can be considered for risk categorization of pig farms as a less-time consuming and more sensitive method compared to microbiological testing of tonsils but must be combined with analyses of other risk factors relevant to infection or contamination in the pork chain. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Research on Microbial Contamination and Microbial Safety in the Food Chain)

15 pages, 1472 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Phenotypic and Genotypic Analysis of Antimicrobial Resistance of Commensal Escherichia coli from Dairy Cows’ Feces

by Maksud Kerluku, Marija Ratkova Manovska, Mirko Prodanov, Biljana Stojanovska-Dimzoska, Zehra Hajrulai-Musliu, Dean Jankuloski and Katerina Blagoevska

Processes 2023, 11(7), 1929; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11071929 - 26 Jun 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1771

Abstract

Commensal Escherichia coli has the potential to easily acquire resistance to a broad range of antimicrobials, making it a reservoir for its transfer to other microorganisms, including pathogens. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of resistant commensal Escherichia coli isolated from dairy cows’ feces. Phenotypic resistance profiles and categorization were determined by minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) testing with the broth microdilution method, while the PCR method was used to determine the presence of resistant genes. Out of 159 commensal E. coli isolates, 39 (24.5%) were confirmed to have resistance. According to the MIC values, 37 (97.3%) and 1 (2.7%) isolate were phenotypically categorized as ESBL and ESBL/AmpC, respectively. All isolates showed resistance to ampicillin, while 97.4%, 56.4%, and 36% showed resistance to cefotaxime, ciprofloxacine, and azitromycine, respectively. Not all isolates that showed phenotypic resistance were found to be carrying the corresponding gene. The most prevalent resistant genes were gyrA, tetA, sul2, and tetB, which were present in 61.5%, 64%, 54%, and 49% of the isolates, respectively. The results clearly indicate that, besides their resistance to multiple antimicrobials, the commensal E. coli isolates did not necessarily carry any genes conferring resistance to that particular antimicrobial. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Research on Microbial Contamination and Microbial Safety in the Food Chain)

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14 pages, 2710 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effect of 450 nm Visible Blue Light from Light-Emitting Diode on Escherichia coli O157:H7 in Agar Gels: Optimizing the Lighting Array and Quantitative Microbial Exposure Assessment

by Hwabin Jung and Won Byong Yoon

Processes 2023, 11(5), 1331; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11051331 - 26 Apr 2023

Viewed by 1138

Abstract

Visible blue light emitting diodes (LED) have been studied to inactivate Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157:H7 in agar gels. The LED array was optimized to attain uniform light illumination, and the light intensity distribution was visualized through optical simulation. The uniformity of LED light intensity was assessed, and the evenly spaced array showed the best uniformity with a Petri factor of 0.99. Microbial populations in agar gels prepared with and without a dye were analyzed after light irradiation. Each segment of the gels with different heights was taken to measure microbial reduction, and the results indicated that optical properties, such as opaqueness, played an important role in microbial reduction. The agar gel without and with a dye showed a maximum reduction of <3.4 and <2.1 log CFU/g, respectively. An exposure assessment for E. coli O157:H7 was conducted based on the assumption for the agar gel product after LED illumination. The probability results indicated that a risk (>5 log CFU/g) existed mainly in the bottom layer of the sample, despite the average contamination being <5 log CFU/g. This study provides a suitable approach for designing the LED photoinactivation process and subsequent exposure assessment to avoid risk. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Research on Microbial Contamination and Microbial Safety in the Food Chain)

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Review

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16 pages, 852 KiB

Open AccessReview

Use of Non-Chlorine Sanitizers in Improving Quality and Safety of Marketed Fresh Salad Vegetables

by Sharmin Zaman, Ashfaq Aziz, Md. Abubakkar Siddique, Md. Abdul Khaleque and Md. Latiful Bari

Processes 2024, 12(5), 1011; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr12051011 - 16 May 2024

Viewed by 376

Abstract

The safety of vegetable food is compromised by various factors, including the inefficient or excessive use of sanitizers. Instances of individuals falling ill after consuming raw vegetables have been reported, with outbreaks of diseases caused by pathogens on fresh vegetables becoming increasingly prevalent globally, attracting significant media coverage and impacting the economic viability of vegetable cultivation. Measures to enhance food safety in postharvest horticultural produce involve controlling microbial proliferation and minimizing cross-contamination. Sanitizers were utilized in the food safety arsenal for a variety of purposes, including pathogen elimination and microbe reduction, hand, tool, and vegetable contact surface cleaning, and produce shelf-life extension. Choosing an appropriate sanitizer for all vegetables is difficult due to a lack of knowledge on which sanitizers are ideal for the many types of vegetables grown on farms under different environmental circumstances. Although chlorine-based sanitizers, such as sodium or calcium hypochlorite, have been widely used for the past 50 years, recent research has revealed that chlorine reacts with an organic compound in fresh vegetables to produce trihalomethane, a carcinogen precursor, and as a result, many countries have prohibited the use of chlorine in all foods. As a result, horticulture research groups worldwide are exploring non-chlorine, ecologically friendly sanitizers for the vegetable industry. They also want to understand more about the present procedures in the vegetable business for employing alternative sanitizers, as well as the efficacy and potential dangers to the food safety of fresh salad vegetables. This review paper presents detailed information on non-chlorine sanitizers, such as their efficacy, benefits, drawbacks, regulatory requirements, and the need for additional research to lower the risk of marketed salad vegetable food safety. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Research on Microbial Contamination and Microbial Safety in the Food Chain)

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