Recipient Organization
KANSAS STATE UNIV
(N/A)
MANHATTAN,KS 66506
Performing Department
Food Science Institute
Non Technical Summary
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recently reported new, more accurate estimates of foodborne illnesses that occur annually in the U.S. Approximately 48 million cases of foodborne illness, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths occur each year from foodborne microorganisms. The commodities that led to the most outbreak-related illnesses were fruits and nuts (24%), vine-stalk vegetables (23%) and beef (13%) (Anonymous, 2011). Moreover, the annual cost of foodborne illness in the U.S. is estimated at $89 billion for loss of productivity, other economic losses and medical expenditures. The availability of improved microbiological methods will facilitate the goal of reducing the burden of current and emerging foodborne pathogens at all points of the food chain from farm to fork. Such methods will decrease foodborne related illnesses and deaths, and reduce economic losses to the food industry.Therefore, the long-term goal of this project is the establishment of a multi-disciplinary network of scientists that performs comprehensive and integrated risk-based research and outreach to improve the safety of food from farm to fork.The project has been designed to address the critical needs of the fresh and processed food industries by developing a thorough understanding of how these foods become contaminated with foodborne microbial pathogens. in addition to developing a better understanding of the microbial ecology of foodborne pathogens and methods to detect and control their presence in foods, this multi-state project will permit undergraduate and graduate students to gain experience in current and emerging methods used to identify, track, and control foodborne pathogens in the food production environment, as well as the use of modern molecular methods to identify and study emerging pathogens that may contribute to the burden of foodborne illnesses. Finally, communication strategies will be precisely tailored to the particular audience (processors, distributors, retailers, consumers) and message content will focus on risk-based strategies and microbial control opportunities deemed critical for each target audience to achieve the greatest strides in improving food safety in the U.S.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
0%
Goals / Objectives
Risk Assessment: Assess food safety risks in agriculture systems
Risk Management: Develop science-based interventions to prevent and mitigate food safety threats
Risk Communication: Communicate food safety messages to stakeholders
Project Methods
A combination of basic and applied science questions will be addressed using laboratory experiments, field trials, and epidemiological investigations.Inoculation studiesFood commodities will be obtained from producers, processors or purchased from local retailers or distributors.Pathogenic strains that have been associated with outbreaks from the commodity of interest will be used whenever possible. If not possible, other significant pathogenic strains will be selected. Validated non-pathogenic surrogate species of various microorganisms are also available for those situations where the use of such organisms may be appropriate.Inoculation: frozen stock cultures of bacterial strains are typically stored in glycerol stock solutions at -80°C. Inocula may be prepared from plate or broth cultures, and may or may not be washed prior to use. Appropriate carrier media will be used for inoculations at volumes, levels and methods typical for the commodity being evaluated. Standard methods will also be used to create viral or parasitic inocula. Methods for inoculation of food commodities will vary, as required, to best mimic standard commodity specific criteria and the specific hypothesis-based research questions being addressed.Recovery of Pathogens from Inoculated Samples: sample sizes, buffering solutions, and maceration methods will vary depending upon commodity and experiment-specific requirements. Enumeration of bacterial pathogens following serial dilutions by standard plating techniques onto selective and non-selective media, Most Probable Number techniques or by more sophisticated molecular techniques are commonly used. When samples fall below the limit of detection standard enrichment protocols (FDA BAM or others) will be followed. The collection of quantitative data will be encouraged whenever possible and can be used to populate risk models.Recovery of Pathogens from Environmental and un-inoculated Food Sources: sampling methods to recover pathogens from the environment and foods will vary depending upon the sampling scheme and source as appropriate for the experimental design of the experiment. When appropriate, concentration techniques may be used to evaluate larger than typical sample volumes/weights and enrichment techniques used to evaluate samples when low numbers of cells are present.Assessment of food safety risks in agricultural systemsWe propose to evaluate and model relationships between microbial contamination and food commodities using available and emerging technologies, such as understanding prevalence and frequencies of pathogens and antimicrobial resistance within the environment, food products and food production processing, distributions and consumer systems. Also vital to the success of any risk assessment is a comprehensive perception of both concentration and distribution of risk factors, including foodborne pathogens and presence of antimicrobial resistance genes. Much of the currently available prevalence data is lacking critical concentration data, which while difficult to determine, is an essential piece of any risk assessment. These issues will be addressed by our plan to evaluate frequencies and concentrations of pathogens and antimicrobial-resistance genes and identify production, manufacturing, distribution or consumer management practices that improve public health by reducing these risks. Persistence, dissemination and traceability of the microorganisms and antimicrobial resistance within the environment, food products and food processing, distribution, and consumer systems. In addition to understanding relationships between indicator organisms and pathogens, and concentration/frequencies of risk factors during food production, of crucial importance is an understanding of how risk factors can vary from the time a food product is conceived to consumption by a consumer, and how typical industry or consumer practices and handling can influence these risks. While a significant amount of data exists for some commodities, others remain relatively understudied, and handling practices are continually evolving with the industry. For data that do exist, a systematic review to identify critical data gaps and extraction of data for inclusion into comprehensive risk assessments is an opportunity for PIs of this project. While where gaps will be identified, our strategy is to tackle these concern in our multidisciplinary, systems approach of critical data gap identification, data generation, and modeling of multiple commodity, production, process, distribution and consumption patterns.Develop science-based interventions to prevent and mitigate food safety threats: models and a risk management framework based on commodity-specific flow diagrams and inputs from the first objective will be developed. A key component of this activity will be the use of risk modeling techniques to relate levels of microbial contamination in food to the likelihood of the occurrence of foodborne outbreaks. The information developed using this approach will then be utilized to mitigate risks at specific points along the farm to fork continuum. The data developed using the risk modeling approaches will also lead to the identification of critical data gaps, which will feed back into new projects.For foods that are processed, the development and validation of novel processing technologies will lead to reduced risk of the production of contaminated foods. In order to develop effective interventions, it is first necessary to understand the effects that cold chain temperature abuse have on the ability of bacterial foodborne pathogens to grow during transportation. The ecology of foodborne pathogens during transportation between unit operations within the food continuum is grossly understudied and misrepresented in current risk modeling simulations. Data from these studies will be used in risk assessment models to predicting the growth of foodborne bacterial pathogens during various stages of transport. Another major area of concern with respect to contamination of food is the domestic kitchen. Similar to temperature control, consumer behaviors and actions they perform to increase or decrease food safety risks requires further study for inclusion in current risk modeling simulations. To address this concern, an additional evaluation of the efficacy of novel methods and products for washing produce to decrease populations of foodborne pathogens may be undertaken. Depending on the commodity, any number of methods could be evaluated. The most promising methods will be promoted through programs and educational materials.Communicate food safety messages to stakeholdersEffective communication is critical to incite behavior and management changes towards a safer food supply. Instead of relying solely on passive diffusion of information through the publication of Fact Sheets and peer-reviewed journal articles, and presentations, herein we propose to use two-way exchanges of information between stakeholders and researchers to tailor risk management messages for each specific audience. Based on stakeholder feedback and the assessed success or limitations of various communication strategies, changes will be made to outreach approaches to meet specific audience needs. Targeted stakeholders include producers, processors, retailers, food service, and consumers. However, to enhance the capacity of this group to communicate food safety information to stakeholders we will expand our communication efforts in to the following groups: a) Seafood industry b) Juice and beverage industry c) Produce, dried fruit and nut industries d) Dairy industry e) Meat industries f) Poultry and Egg industries g) Ingredient manufacturers h) Consumers i) Food service and retail organizations j) Public health agencies k) Regulatory agencies.