Food safety Behind the spike


When it comes to our food, safety and hygiene are of the utmost importance in order to avoid risk of illness. Meanwhile, countries worldwide continue to expend significant resources to counter the threat of food poisoning, with salmonella one of the major causes of these food-borne illnesses. Despite


efforts to limit salmonella outbreaks, there has been a notable spike in the past year in the number of salmonella-related infections in the UK, for example. Ingredients Insight speaks to Dr James Cooper, deputy director of Food Policy at the Food Standards Agency, and Siobhan Silas, senior policy and public affairs executive at The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, to find out what’s behind the rise in infections, the risk of cross-contamination and what can be done to improve food safety.


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n its paper ‘Persistence of microbiological hazards in food and feed production and processing environments’ (2024), the European Food Safety Authority noted that listeria monocytogenes (in the meat, fish and seafood, dairy and fruit and vegetable sectors), salmonella enterica (in the feed, meat, egg and low moisture food sectors) and cronobacter


sakazakii (in the low moisture food sector), were the bacterial food safety hazards most relevant to public health that are associated with ‘persistence’ in the food and feed processing environment (FFPE). Common risk factors it identified for persistence in the FFPE included insufficient hygienic zoning and barriers, design of equipment and machines; and


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