Research Publications (Food Safety)

Journal of Food Safety, EarlyView. Demand for sustainable and safe raw agricultural commodities is growing rapidly worldwide. Reducing the risk of foodborne illnesses associated with fresh produce is a task which the industry and academic researchers have been struggling with for many years. There is an immediate need to devise a non-invasive optical detection system to monitor the food-borne pathogens on the leaf surface.

The ratio of forage to concentrate in cattle feeding has a major influence on the composition of the microbiota in the rumen and on the mass of methane produced. Using methane measurements and microbiota data from 26 cattle we aimed to investigate the relationships between microbial relative abundances and methane emissions, and identify potential biomarkers, in animals fed two extreme diets - a poor quality fresh cut grass diet (GRASS) or a high concentrate total mixed ration (TMR).

Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, EarlyView. Postharvest diseases and quality degradation are the major factors causing food losses in the fresh produce supply chain. Hence, detecting diseases and quality deterioration at the asymptomatic stage of produce enables growers to treat the diseases earlier, maintain quality and reduce postharvest food losses.

This research was conducted to explore the influence of cold shock on the firmness, a quality marker in chili pepper during 0–21 d storage and determine mechanism by cold shock impacted pectin. Chili peppers were exposed to cold shock precooling (0 ± 2 °C water/ice mixture) for 0-, 30-, 90- and 150-min, respectively. Results showed that cold shock alleviated loss of firmness throughout storage.

Journal of Food Safety, EarlyView. Preharvest control strategies, to reduce or eliminate pathogenic bacteria in leafy vegetables that may be consumed raw, may provide additional food safety protection and shelf life quality extension beyond what is possible to achieve with postharvest sanitation alone.

Journal of Food Safety, EarlyView. Stropharia rugosoannulata, a high-value mushroom, exhibits high nutritional value and flavor characteristics; however, the mushroom is susceptible to spoilage, water loss and texture deterioration, which renders its safety and edibility a challenge. To improve the shelf life of fresh mushrooms during storage, a novel nanocomposite packaging (NP) was applied for the first time to maintain the freshness of S.

Ecological sustainability, productivity, and sensory quality of coffee fruits are important variables for coffee cultivation in agroforestry systems (AFSs). There is an appreciation of the ecological interactions between agricultural crops and native plants in the AFS. Coffea arabica L. is a shrub with geographic origins in the tropical forests of Africa. Thus, the production of coffee in AFSs can be an interesting alternative.

The purpose was to create a novel composite food preservative for fresh-cut lettuce using flavonoids and chitosan from sea buckthorn leaves (SBL). Sea buckthorn leaves were extracted with ethanol as the extraction solvent and ultrasonic-assisted extraction to obtain flavonoid from sea buckthorn leaf crude (FSL), and then the FSL was secondarily purified with AB-8 resin and polyamide resin to obtain flavonoid from sea buckthorn leaf purified (FSL-1).

Calcium treatment can reduce fruit softening and browning and enhance postharvest fruit quality. Chitosan (CS) had a certain viscosity. Therefore, in this study, calcium chloride (CaCl2) was used as a calcium source and CS was used as a carrier to study the interaction of Ca2+ and CS of the film coating through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR).

Journal of Food Science, EarlyView. Sugar beet leaves can be a viable and economically interesting source of high-quality protein for the food industry. We investigated how storage conditions and leaf wounding at harvest affect the content and quality of the soluble protein. After collection, leaves were either stored intact or shredded to mimic wounding induced by commercial leaf harvesters.

The genus Aeromonas has received constant attention in different areas, from aquaculture and veterinary medicine to food safety, where more and more frequent isolates are occurring with increased resistance to antibiotics. The present paper studied the interaction of Aeromonas strains isolated from fresh produce and water with different eukaryotic cell types with the aim of better understanding the cytotoxic capacity of these strains.

Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, EarlyView. Chitosan is an interesting alternative material for packaging development due to its biodegradability. However, its poor mechanical properties and low permeability limit its actual applications. Chitosan nanoparticles (CHNPs) have emerged as a suitable solution to overcome these intrinsic limitations.

Over one-third of the produced food is wasted globally. Most food is wasted at the consumer stage. The use of waste sorting analysis is considered to deliver more precise and less biased results than self-reporting methodologies. Currently, no detailed studies on the amounts and composition of household food waste are available for Poland. In the current paper the results of a food waste generation study in the city of Opole in Poland are presented.

by Mauricio F. Landaeta, Carola Hernández-Santoro, Francesca V. Search, Manuel I. Castillo, Claudio Bernal, Sergio A. Navarrete, Evie A. Wieters, Ricardo Beldade, Ana Navarro Campoi, Alejandro Pérez-Matus 

This research developed a novel, efficient and safe antimildew for peanut kernel postharvest storage. The antimildew, cinnamon-Litsea cubeba compound essential oil (CLCEO) microcapsule (CLCEOM), was synthesized with CLCEO as core materials and β-cyclodextrin as wall materials. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analyses indicated that major antifungal compounds of CLCEO were encapsulated in the cavity of β-cyclodextrin.

In 2008, the African Postharvest Losses Information Systems project (APHLIS, accessed on 6 September 2022) developed an algorithm for estimating the scale of cereal postharvest losses (PHLs). The relevant scientific literature and contextual information was used to build profiles of the PHLs occurring along the value chains of nine cereal crops by country and province for 37 sub-Saharan African countries.

Journal of Food Safety, EarlyView. Sulfur dioxide (SO2) fumigation has been widely used to control pathogens and maintain the postharvest quality of table grapes. However, the effective dosage of SO2 treatment is close to causing bleaching damage on fruits. Further, the SO2 potential residue is a risk to human health.

Botrytis cinerea is one of the most important postharvest pathogens causing economical loss in blackberry. To control B. cinerea effectively with safe agent, optimal allyl isothiocyanate (AITC) concentration was determined. Freshly harvested blackberries were placed in a plastic container and treated with AITC at 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, and 10 μL L-1 for 12 h at 4 °C, and then stored for 14 d at 4 °C and 80 % relative humidity.

Blueberry surface color is determined in large part by anthocyanin pigments and is one of the most important quality traits influencing consumer preference. Postharvest changes in fruit surface color and phenolic compounds, including anthocyanins, have been reported in blueberries; however, the relationships between these changes had not yet been investigated.

The rapid increase in population growth under changing climatic conditions causes drought stress, threatening world food security. The identification of physiological and biochemical traits acting as yield-limiting factors in diverse germplasm is pre-requisite for genetic improvement under water-deficit conditions. The major aim of the present study was the identification of drought-tolerant wheat cultivars with a novel source of drought tolerance from local wheat germplasm.

The presence of ethylene during postharvest handling of tomatoes can be the main problem in maintaining fruit shelf-life by accelerating the ripening process and causing several quality changes in fruit. Several researchers have studied the methods for improving the postharvest life of tomato fruit by controlling ethylene response, such as by mutation. New ethylene receptor mutants have been identified, namely Sletr1-1, Sletr1-2, Nr (Never ripe), Sletr4-1, and Sletr5-1.

Fruit phenotypic information reflects all the physical, physiological, biochemical characteristics and traits of fruit. Accurate access to phenotypic information is very necessary and meaningful for post-harvest storage, sales and deep processing. The methods of obtaining phenotypic information include traditional manual measurement and damage detection, which are inefficient and destructive.

Pesticide use has grown rapidly in West Africa over the past decades. Regulatory capacity has not kept pace with the rapid proliferation of pesticide products and on-farm use. As a result, health and environmental impacts from the growing use of pesticides, despite their potential importance to food safety, remain largely unmonitored, underreported, and poorly understood by key stakeholders.

Rapid, accurate, sensitive, and real-time detection of streptomycin (STR) residues in dairy products is very important. In this work, for the first time, the gold nanoflower/polyethyleneimine-functionalized metal organic framework (AuNF-PEI-MIL-101(Cr)) nanocomposites were synthesized via hydrothermal method and characterized using various techniques (SEM, TEM, XRD, FT-IR, and XPS).

As an apple fruit rot disease related fungus, Alternaria spp. could bring severe hazardous risk to apple fruits during postharvest storage. In this research, cold treatment is investigated for inhibition of Alternaria infection and related mycotoxins production during postharvest storage of apple. Morphology results show that cold treatment could inhibit Alternaria rot in inoculated apple samples.