Update of the list of QPS‐recommended biological agents intentionally added to food or feed as notified to EFSA 12: suitability of taxonomic units notified to EFSA until March 2020

Abstract

The qualified presumption of safety (QPS) was developed to provide a generic safety evaluation for biological agents to support EFSA's Scientific Panels. It is based on an assessment of the taxonomic identity, the body of knowledge, safety concerns and antimicrobial resistance. Safety concerns identified for a taxonomic unit (TU) are where possible to be confirmed at strain or product level, reflected by ‘qualifications’. No new information was found that would change the previously recommended QPS TUs of the 39 microorganisms notified to EFSA between October 2019 and March 2020, 33 were excluded, including five filamentous fungi, five Escherichia coli, two Enterococcus faecium, two Streptomyces spp. and 19 TUs already evaluated. Six TUs were evaluated. Akkermansia muciniphila was not recommended for QPS status due to safety concerns. Clostridium butyricum was not recommended because some strains contain pathogenicity factors. This TU was excluded for further QPS evaluation. Galdieria sulphuraria and Pseudomonas chlororaphis were also rejected due to a lack of body of knowledge. The QPS status of Corynebacterium ammoniagenes (with the qualification ‘for production purposes only’) and of Komagataella pastoris (with the qualification ‘for enzyme production’) was confirmed. In relation to the taxonomic revision of the Lactobacillus genus, previously designated Lactobacillus species will be reassigned to the new species and both the old and new names will be retained in the QPS list.

Yeast Biodiversity in Fermented Doughs and Raw Cereal Matrices and the Study of Technological Traits of Selected Strains Isolated in Spain

“…Saccharomycetales species involved in bread-related fermentation are most often the only species found using culture-based methods [ 30 ]. The prospective analysis of a wide range of cereal matrices from Spain allowed us to identify yeast species with the status of Qualified Presumption of Safety (QPS), which are considered as food-grade microorganisms [ 107 , 108 , 109 ]. Of the 513 microbial colonies originally recovered from different matrices, 433 isolates belonging to 9-QPS yeast species were selected for further studies ( Table S1 ) and 81 were discarded (~16%) ( Table S4 ).…”

Pediococcus pentosaceus, a future additive or probiotic candidate

“…In addition, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) evaluated a number of traditional species of probiotics as safe for application in food by the Qualified Presumption of Safety (QPS) [ 121 ]. From October 2019 to March 2020, EFSA found that only 6 microorganisms met the standard from 39 notifications [ 122 ].…”

Herd-Level and Individual Differences in Fecal Lactobacilli Dynamics of Growing Pigs

“…Several Lactobacillus species are shown to have probiotic properties [ 23 , 26 ]. Further, many Lactobacillus probiotics have the notification “generally regarded as safe” (GRAS) issued by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) [ 23 , 26 ] and also fall under “qualified presumption of safety” (QPS) in the European Union (EU) [ 27 ]. Lactobacilli are abundant in the GIT of pigs [ 26 ], thus urging investigations of their potential as pig-specific probiotics.…”