A review of microbial biofilms of produce: Future challenge to food safety

Abstract

Outbreaks of produce-related food-borne pathogens have undergone a sharp increase in last three decades because of high produce consumption. A paradigm of food safety for produce is important due to its susceptibility to microbial attack and biofilms formation. Greater attention should be paid to decontaminating the pathogens in biofilms as they pose a risk to public health. This review will focus on produce-related outbreaks, attachments, quorum sensing, biofilms formation, resistance to sanitizers and disinfectants, and current and emerging control strategies for fresh and minimally processed produce, providing new insight into food safety. The consequences of biofilms formation on produce include the formation of a protective environment that is resistant to cleaning and disinfection. Alternative means of controlling or inhibiting biofilms formation on produce will be explained briefly and we will identify where additional research is needed.

Antimicrobial Resistance in the Food Chain: A Review

“…Furthermore, biofilms can also threat public health when pathogenic species are involved. Biofilms have given rise to concerns for food safety in for example the meat industry [131], the dairy industry [132] and the produce industry [133]. An important health issue related to the occurrence of biofilms in the food industry is the inherent higher antimicrobial resistance compared to planktonic cells.…”

Cold Plasma Inactivation of Escherichia coli O157:H7 Biofilms

“…Conventional antimicrobial chemical treatments are typically less effective in treating biofilm contamination Ryu and Beuchat, 2005;Langsrud et al, 2016). Biofilms formed by native, nonpathogenic microflora are widely distributed in fresh-produce processing environments, and are known to incorporate human pathogens Jahid and Ha, 2012;Liu et al, 2013).…”

Microbial ecology of fresh vegetables

“…Several innovative approaches both chemically and physically have been explored for the decontamination of fresh or fresh-cut vegetables (Table 17.5). Effective washing and decontamination of fresh-cut veg etables is difficult to achieve due to the different types of vegetables, the inadequate efficacy of individual treatments alone (Table 17.5), the presence of biofilms on vegetables and on processing equipment (Jahid and Ha, 2012;Somers et al, 1994), and internalization/infil tration of bacteria within produce (Zhuang et al, 1995;Zheng et al, 2013;Takeuchi and Frank, 2000). Therefore, a combination of different disinfection methods (e.g., hurdle technology) (Rico et al, 2007;Joshi et al, 2013) is necessary to increase the efficacy of disinfectants against microbial population reduction.…”