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Food Safety & Quality Scientific Library

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What are the benefits of having a good Environmental Monitoring Program?

In the complex landscape of food manufacturing and production, it is vital to guarantee product safety and quality. The implementation of a robust and comprehensive environmental monitoring program is essential for achieving these objectives, protecting both consumers and the reputation of food factories.  

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Which QC strains to use for minimizing risk of false positives due to cross-contamination in a lab?

The use of traceable culture collection strains, including pathogenic ones, is necessary in food as well as water and environmental laboratories for various applications ...

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Ready to Eat Food Microbial Detection and Quality Control

Ready-to-eat (RTE) meal manufacturers have a lot on their plates, especially when it comes to spoilage and contamination. The presence of pathogens in ready-to-eat foods is a more serious threat to public health than their presence in raw meat products because ready-to-eat foods do not usually receive additional treatments to eliminate these bacteria ; meanwhile, they may contain native microflora including pathogenic bacteria of the raw material from which they are prepared.
Performance of bioMérieux Methods for the Detection and Identification of Listeria spp. (sensu stricto, sensu lato)

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New Listeria Species - What do they Mean for Detection Methods

The genus Listeria has considerably expanded since 2009 to now include 27 species with diverse phenotypic and genotypic  characteristics. Comparative characterization of all current Listeria species clearly indicates that the current Listeria species represent two distinct groups, 

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How to Control the Risk of Cross-contamination in Food Microbiology Laboratories?

BIOBALL® LUMINATE 2.0 brings precision, accuracy and innovation to food industrials to ensure microorganism quality control in their products.

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GENE-UP® PRO ACB

A 2017 survey published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology revealed that over 90% of juice manufacturers surveyed indicated that better control over microbial spoilage would have moderately to greatly increased profits and reduced waste.

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Distinction of the Bacillus cereus Group Species in Routine Diagnostics

Bacillus cereus Group, also known as presumptive Bacillus cereus or B. cereus sensu lato comprises closely related species widely distributed in the environment and food matrices. Besides characteristic colonies on MYP agar, these species exhibit highly divergent properties and their distinction remains challenging.

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Salmonella

Salmonella is a normally motile, Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae. The genus Salmonella is divided into two species that can cause illness in humans (salmonellosis), S. enterica and S. bongori. Salmonella enterica, which is of the greatest public health concern (WHO, 2015), is comprised of six subspecies, namely enterica, salamae, arizonae, diarizonae, houtenae and indica.

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Salmonella Enteritidis and Typhimurium

Salmonella enterica is a leading worldwide cause of foodborne human illnesses (WHO, 2015). Salmonella isolates can be differentiated into serotypes according to the Kauffmann-White classification based on their flagellar (H) and somatic antigens (Grimont P. & Weill F.X., 2007) or using genome-based serotyping approaches (Banerji S. et al., 2020).

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Beer Quality Control & Contamination Prevention

Craft beer brewhouses and large-scale breweries alike must rely on rapid and accurate spoilage organism detection to avoid beer contamination. Due to the nature of the microorganisms, beer contaminants can easily go undetected by traditional microbiology detection.

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STEC: A Worrying Zoonotic Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli

Shiga Toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) also known as verocytotoxin-producing E. coli (VTEC) are facultative anaerobic Gram-negative, rod-shaped pathogenic bacteria belonging to the Enterobacteriaceae Family; They produce toxins called Shiga toxins (Stx) or verotoxins (Vtx), respectively because of their similarity with the toxin produced by Shigella dysenteriae or their cytotoxicity for the VERO cells.

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Quality Control Management of Nutraceuticals and Dietary Supplements

As the name would suggest, nutraceuticals combine the ‘nutrients’ derived from natural food sources with the health-promoting implications of ‘pharmaceutics’. Nutraceuticals claim a wide range of physiological benefits depending on the chemical makeup of their sources, including boosting immune health, chronic pain management, and improving overall wellness.

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Enteropathogenic vibrios: A Growing Worldwide Public Health Risk

Members of the genus Vibrio are Gram-negative mobile rods, usually producing oxidase and catalase. Over 100 Vibrio species have been described and around a dozen of these have been demonstrated to cause infections in humans (Codex, 2010; Hartnell et al., 2019). The species most associated with foodborne infections include V. parahaemolyticus, V. vulnificus and V. cholerae (FDA-2012).

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Raw Beef Contamination & Quality Control

Raw beef contamination is a worldwide public health concern. Every year, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) outbreaks are associated with the consumption of contaminated beef products across the globe. Salmonella and Listeria are also two main pathogens of increasing concern in the beef industry.

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Bacillus cereus Group

The Bacillus cereus group, also known as B. cereus sensu lato or “presumptive Bacillus cereus” consists of Gram-positive, rod-shaped, spore-forming bacilli, commonly isolated from soil, other environmental and food matrices.

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Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) and Metagenomics

All of the information required for a living being to grow, reproduce, and mature is encoded in sequences of 4 building blocks called nucleotides commonly abbreviated as C, G, A, and T) polymerized into long chains contained within cells called deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).

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Part 7 - Detection of Lactobacillus, Diastaticus, Pediococcus, Pectinatus, Megasphaera

Your craft brewery is up and running, and demand is starting to grow. How do you ensure the product you are selling remains consistent in taste and quality as production increases? In addition to the physico-chemical parameters that you will be probably already monitoring in your quality control laboratory, setting up a brewery microbiology quality control capability in your laboratory is critical in answering these questions.

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Part 6 - PCR Detection of Beer Spoilage Explained

All beer spoiler microorganisms possess DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) which contains the genetic instructions for the development and function of living things. While in animals, plants and yeasts the DNA is contained in the cell nucleus, in bacteria the DNA is present in their cytoplasm (the material within a cell, enclosed by the cell membrane).

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Part 5 - Beer Spoilage Detection

My needs concerning a beer spoiler detection set-up are identified. What technological choices do I have for my laboratory?

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Part 2 - Beer Spoilers

Definition: Beer Spoilers are microorganisms that can change the flavour, aroma, or appearance of beer in a manner deemed undesirable by the brewer (and the consumer!!). Although there is some overlap, brewers seek to divide spoilage organisms into the categories of “beer spoilers” and “wort spoilers,” with the latter largely inhibited by alcohol, pH, and/or the anaerobic environment created by yeast fermentation (Priest 2003).

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Part 3 - Beer Spoilers

All breweries, as part of their microbial plan, aspire to curb the number of opportunities that beer spoilers, essentially bacteria or yeast, have to enter their establishments. As part of a brewery’s Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) plan, the brewer needs to identify the different sources of contamination in his/her establishment and try to prevent access of the microbes.

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Part 4 - Beer Spoilage Detection

Beer Spoilage Detection: What factors to take into consideration when choosing the right testing technology?

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Campylobacter

The Campylobacter, a genus of gram-negative and non-spore forming bacteria, belongs to the family of Campylobacteraceae and includes a total of 27 species1. Those are small curved-spiral bacilli, with a characteristic spiraled « corkscrew » motility.

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Listeria spp and Listeria monocytogenes

Listeria is a genus of Gram positive bacteria, belonging to the Listeriaceae family and composed of 20 species1, including Listeria monocytogenes which is pathogenic for humans and animals (zoonosis) and Listeria ivanovii which is pathogenic for animals but rarely for humans.

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Food-Borne Virus Burden and Implication for the Food Industry

Human enteric viruses are the number one cause of food-borne outbreaks worldwide. Whether you are a producer, an importer, an exporter, a processor, a retailer, a wholesaler, taking into account the viral risk is crucial to protect consumers. Unlike most bacteria, food-borne viruses do not change the flavor nor the aspect of the food products; moreover, they are hard to get rid of with the usual agro-industrial processes.

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Part 1 - Beer Spoilers

From a human safety aspect, historically beer was always considered a safe drink (compared to water) in that pathogens were not found in beer. This is in part thanks not only because the wort is boiled in the kettle but also due to the level of alcohol, hop resins and a low pH. That said, certain microbial contaminants, the so called “beer spoilers” can propagate in beer and be responsible for off-flavours, acids and non-desirable aromas as well as hazy beers.