I’m really excited Mediray has asked me to contribute to their blog and write a short series of articles about environmental pathogen management in the food industry. I have a real passion for this topic and after visiting hundreds of food plants around the world, it is clear to me that a sound environmental pathogen programme can protect your product, your customers and ultimately, your business.

Of course, being pragmatic and of Dutch descent, I’m also well aware that running an environmental pathogen programme costs money and I fully appreciate that if you run a food business, you want some justification for this expense.

So, let’s start with why!

• Pathogens are still the number one threat to the global food industry.

If you follow food safety news around the world, it will become clear that the most harmful food safety incidents are all related to pathogen contaminations. Just last year, a food company in South Africa set a dubious record: more than 200 people died from eating a Listeria contaminated pre-cooked sausage. This is the largest number of fatalities linked to a single product in global food poisoning history.

Let’s put this in perspective; with 4.1 billion passengers taking to the air, only 44 people died in the global aviation industry in the whole of 2017. So, if these trends continue, it may become riskier to eat a meal than to get on a plane. It possibly already is.

In 2018, we have had E coli in lettuce (US), Listeria in rock melons (Australia), Salmonella in infant formula (France) and Listeria in frozen vegetables (everywhere). Looking at this list, there’s something else: the products involved in food poisoning outbreaks are changing. When I started my career in the food industry (which, admittedly, is a while ago), products like frozen vegetables and rock melons were definitely not considered a pathogen risk.

• An environmental pathogen programme works.

Monitoring your food plant environment for pathogens will give you an early warning, before your product and your customers are affected. We only have to read some investigations by the USFDA to realise that in several serious food poisoning incidents, the pathogen in the product had been found in the factory environment, before any consumers fell ill.

Take company X, a small soft cheese manufacturer in Florida. In 2015, 20% of their food contact surface swabs for Listeria came back positive. Unable to get on top of this contamination, they continued production and people started getting sick from their cheese in 2016.

The timeline in this case (serious environmental contamination in 2015 and consumer illness in 2016) shows that an environmental pathogen monitoring programme can give us plenty of warning and time to act.

For me, a positive environmental sample is a blessing. It means we can start investigating, look for the root cause and strengthen our systems and controls, before any real damage happens.

• Your food business is more exposed than ever.

New diagnostic developments in microbiology have made a real difference in the investigations of food poisoning outbreaks. Investigators are now using a technology called Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS), which can establish a “hard” link from the patient to the food product all the way back to the manufacturing plant. Once your name is out there, social media will be very quick to link your manufacturing plant to your products and the wider consumer market.

Even if your company is not involved, consequences of a food poisoning outbreak can be devastating. The E. Coli outbreak in Romaine lettuce in the Yuma district in the US, caused the whole market segment for this lettuce to drop by almost 45% (WSJ, 30 May 2018). I believe food safety is pre-competitive and knowledge should be shared between food companies; because a food category is only as good as its weakest link.

There is also a global drive to focus on prevention. This is a good thing! The introduction of the Food Safety Modernisation Act (FSMA) in the United States has seen a dramatic increase in the number of environmental pathogen swabs in food factories. Considering FSMA also applies to importers, these US food regulations are starting to drive the expectations and standards in other parts of the world as well.

Finally, one of the main drawbacks of pathogen testing has disappeared. In the past, we had to wait for five days for a Salmonella result and many FMCG food manufacturers were not in a position to store their finished product for this amount of time. Fortunately, new diagnostic technologies, like Gene-Up from BioMerieux, can give you a valid pathogen result within 24 hours. It’s great we no longer have to wait for the bugs to grow.

So, that was the why!

If you are a food manufacturer, environmental pathogen management is a useful preventive tool and becoming increasingly important. For the best protection, the design of your programme is key and over the next four articles I will discuss:

• the dangers of testing for pathogens,
• what pathogens to look for,
• how to plan your pathogen hunt and
• what to do, if you find a pathogen in your plant.

I hope the series will help you with the pathogen controls in your food business. 

Because, like a smoke alarm, an effective environmental pathogen programme will warn you, give you “peace of mind” and a good night’s sleep.

About the Author

With over 30 years experience in the global food industry, Jack has led the international food safety assurance team at Fonterra and is currently working as an independent consultant. Jack has managed consultancy projects in the USA, Europe and China and led the design of Fonterra’s Environmental Pathogen Monitoring Programme. If you would like to get in contact with Jack, you can do so by emailing him at jack.vds@xtra.co.nz.