With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, all industries that need to maintain microbiologically safe environments have shown a renewed interest in antimicrobial coatings and their application.

In the first part of this survey (“Foodborne Parasites: An Insidious Threat to Food Safety and Public Health”), we looked in depth at common pathogenic parasites behind foodborne illness outbreaks and assessed the extensive geography of their origin and prevalence. In this concluding part, we look in detail at industry and regulators’ approaches to preventive control and eradication in response to this expansive threat to the global food supply system and its consumers.
 

Foodborne parasitic diseases are often overlooked or neglected in various food safety control schemes, even though they are known to pose a severe threat to human health and are notoriously difficult to detect, diagnose, and treat. This truth may account for this class of foodborne disease-causing agents being left out of the risk assessment equation.

To improve food safety and reduce the risk of foodborne illness related to meal kits, it is important to evaluate operations with a farm-to-fork lens, ensuring not just the safety of the meal kit itself but also promoting proper handling and preparation by the customer.

Risk communicators should be aware of the uncertainties in the science underlying food safety as well as their own potential biases. Do you understand what this means for your food safety messaging around your brand?

Food safety incidents like cyberattacks are increasing, which require the use of metrics to help prevent and overcome these challenges facing food safety professionals. This is the last in a three-part series looking at enterprise risk management in food safety.

Researchers from San Diego State University, Virginia Tech, Loyola Marymount University, and Radford University are using text mining to try to pinpoint unique words and phrases in posts online, which identify consumers' experiences with hazardous food products. 

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) has identified three areas for research: emerging food safety risks, food chain vulnerability assessments, and fresh produce traceability.

The process for evaluating chemicals in foods and the environment advanced significantly in 1983 when the National Research Council (NRC) published the first edition of its publication Risk Assessment in the Federal Government: Managing the Process.