Resulting from dialogues held by the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy's Food Safety Committee, this article shares some of the learnings industry has assimilated for Cronobacter control by following the journey of a theoretical ready-to-eat (RTE) dry powder plant striving to eliminate Cronobacter in its environment.

In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak to Dr. Takashi Nakamura, Vice President of Food Safety at Fresh Del Monte, about the company’s food safety initiatives, from supplier approval and grower engagement to environmental monitoring, traceability, and beyond. 

Environmental monitoring programs (EMPs) are not just static documents, but living systems that require active, weekly management. It is crucial to ensure that your EMP is not just in place, but also effective. This article discusses three key challenges for evaluating an EMP.

In this Food Safety Insights column, we continue to explore processors' near-term priorities for food safety programs, as well as the regulations and issues they are watching that will have the most impact on their programs in the future. Food safety culture, microbiological control (including environmental monitoring), and sanitation and hygiene are three of processors' indicated top priorities for the near term.

A recent study carried out environmental monitoring programs (EMPs) for Listeria monocytogenes at three food production facilities in Japan with the aim of developing EMPs that are relevant to Japanese food businesses and to encourage more widespread adoption of EMPs.

Implementing an effective Listeria environmental monitoring program enables knowledge of where Listeria can enter, harbor, and move through a facility, which is the first step toward keeping the pathogen on the run and not allowing it to impact production surfaces or finished product.

Cleaning program validation that primarily relies on adenosine triphosphate (ATP) monitoring can yield poor results if a few basic strategies are not incorporated into the sampling program to eliminate bias. These include probability sampling, uniformity of the sample, as well as understanding the limitation of the test instrument and the interpretation of results.

Novolyze’s predictive and machine learning-powered environmental monitoring platform helps food manufacturers maintain the highest levels of food safety and quality.

Novolyze has announced the upgrade of its Environmental Monitoring Program (EMP) solution to include advanced predictive analytics and machine learning.

Through sampling activities and whole genome sequencing (WGS) analysis, a recent research project funded by the Center for Produce Safety (CPS) revealed insights about the movement of L. monocytogenes across a processing facility, the persistence of the pathogen, and the efficacy of biocides and sanitation practices.