Posts from the "Microbial Contamination" category
AU: Blanch your bean sprouts or risk Salmonella Saintpaul
foodprocessing.com.au: Mung beans, sourced from Queensland and sprouted in South Australia, are believed to be the source of the latest foodborne disease outbreak that has sickened people across the Northern Territory and South Australia. The recent Northern Territory Department of Health investigation of the increase in Salmonella infections across Darwin, Palmerston and the rural area has established that the bacteria involved is Salmonella Saintpaul — the same one as that sickening South Australians.
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CA: Costco Canada caught up in recall of frozen organic vegetables
Food Safety News: Possible Listeria contamination in organic peas has caused Costco Wholesale Canada Ltd. to issue its second frozen organic food recall in eight days. Organic by Nature brand frozen sweet peas are the implicated food this time, following Costco’s April 15 recall of Nature’s Touch brand organic berry cherry blend. The frozen organic fruit is linked to a Hepatitis A outbreak that has sickened at least 13, according to Canadian health officials.
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US: Study looks at lettuce grown near livestock
The Packer: Lettuce grown too close to livestock production areas can be at greater risk of pathogen contamination. That’s the conclusion of a recent study by scientists at New York’s Clarkson University, “Bioaerosol Deposition to Food Crops near Manure Application: Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment.â€
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AU: FPSC’s first professional development event a resounding success
The first professional development event held by the Fresh Produce Safety Centre (FPSC) in Sydney has passed with flying colours, according to the participants.
The events are designed by FPSC to provide industry with in-depth understanding of specific fresh produce food safety issues.
This first event tackled the complex area of fresh produce chemical and microbial testing, with eight speakers—from grower, wholesale, retail, regulatory and research—identifying the purpose and value of the different types of testing.
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CA: Phage-based bioactive paper a safe Breakthrough for detecting bacterial pathogens in food
Global Food Safety Resource: Bacteriophages (phages) have been deployed as a promising technology to control the growth of various foodborne bacteria since their discovery early in the 20th Century. Lytic phages are viruses—mostly from 20 to 200 nanometres in diameter—that can infect and replicate within bacteria in a strain-specific manner. When a key number of phages accumulate in the cell, they will lyse (dissolve) the bacterial cells. The key to their specificity are the proteins in their tail fibres which recognize receptors on the surfaces of bacterial cell walls.
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NZ: Listeria scare: Spinach recalled following positive test
TVNZ: The Ministry For Primary Industries (MPI) and Cambridge-based produce company Southern Fresh have recalled the batch of spinach following confirmation it tested positive for listeria monocytogenes."As a further precaution, Southern Fresh have made the decision to place all washed salad products in the marketplace on hold until testing confirms that it is 100 per cent safe to eat.
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AU: How salad vegetable surfaces harbour pathogens — and it’s not how you expect
foodprocessing.com.au: Researchers at the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) decided to look at how viruses could stick to the surface of 24 common salad vegetables. They expected to establish that the small virus particles could ‘hide’ in the rough structures of the cuticle, the waxy layer that protects the plant against diseases and reduces water loss.
Read Article →US: Deliberate act cannot be ruled out for Germany’s 2011 outbreak
Food Safety News:Â Yes, the German E. coli O104:H4 was a pathogen of a high virulence that suddenly emerged, and that might point to an unnatural phenomenon. But might it have been a deliberate act? Or some kind of accident? To be sure, the 2011 outbreak centered on Northern Germany was large, severe, and deadly. Out of the 2,987 confirmed cases not involving hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), 18 died. And out of 855 HUS cases, 35 died.
Read Article →US: Multistate Outbreak of Salmonella Poona Infections Linked to Imported Cucumbers (Final Update)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: This outbreak appears to be over.
CDC, multiple states, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigated a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Poona infections.
A total of 907 people infected with the outbreak strains of Salmonella Poona were reported from 40 states.
A total of 204 ill people were hospitalized, and six deaths were reported from Arizona (1), California (3), Oklahoma (1), and Texas (1). Salmonella infection was not considered to be a contributing factor in two of the three deaths in California.
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SA: Microbiological food safety status of commercially produced tomatoes from production to marketing
Journal of Food Protection: Tomatoes have been implicated in various microbial disease outbreaks and are considered a potential vehicle for foodborne pathogens. Traceback studies mostly implicate contamination during production and/or processing. The microbiological quality of commercially produced tomatoes was thus investigated from the farm to market, focusing on the impact of contaminated irrigation and washing water, facility sanitation, and personal hygiene. A total of 905 samples were collected from three largescale commercial farms from 2012 through 2014.
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