The U.S. and Canada are melting pots of cultures, and one of the most evident expressions of this diversity can be found in the variety of ethnic foods available in markets. While the influx of these foods has brought new and exciting flavors to North American palates, it has also brought the risk of new microbial hazards.
The California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA) has announced its Romaine Test and Learn initiative, a two-year food safety study commencing in October 2023, which will leverage LGMA members’ individual testing data to elicit meaningful, aggregated information to better understand potential microbial risks to leafy greens food safety.
McMaster University researchers have created a new packaging tray that can signal when Salmonella or other foodborne pathogens are present in raw or cooked foods, such as chicken.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has provided updates on the agency’s Cyclospora Prevention, Response, and Research Action Plan to reflect the current status of the agency’s work to prevent and reduce incidences of foodborne cyclosporiasis in the U.S.
On June 29, 2023, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists voted to make Cronobacter sakazakii a nationally notifiable disease, requiring health departments in the U.S. to track and report cases of C. sakazakii to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A new report on preliminary 2022 data from the U.S. Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) finds that enteric infections in the U.S. caused by eight major foodborne pathogens have generally returned to or exceeded levels observed in 2016–2018, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
As part of an effort to reduce cases of salmonellosis attributable to poultry products, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA’s FSIS) conducted a study with the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) laboratories to gather data on not-ready-to-eat (NRTE) breaded stuffed chicken products purchased at retail stores.
Since early 2022, CDC and FDA have investigated an ongoing Salmonella outbreak linked to Italian-style meats. The outbreak has affected at least 36 people across 17 states.
A recent review of control methods for pathogens in beef has identified three key interventions—high herd health status, good management, and biosecurity.