Listeria – From the Ground Up. How to Identify, Find, and Eradicate the Bugger
Over the coming weeks, we will share a series of six brief articles on Listeria. They are intended for food science professionals, especially food safety and quality assurance people. The information presented in these mini-articles will also be of interest to people in all functions. To that end, we have kept the language as non-technical as possible.
On roughly a biweekly basis, we will present mini-articles starting with what Listeria is, and the regulatory governance of Listeria in food from FDA and USDA. We will share background on where the organism comes from, how it can move around a food plant, and how to find it. We will share techniques on how to eradicate the pathogen. We will also share some insights on how to communicate learnings and successes, including with senior management. There will be references for further study.
Some of the information will already be known by those who have had to fight Listeria for many years, as is usually the case when this pathogen becomes your enemy. Yet that same information will be new and useful to those for whom the fight is new. These are people who are new to food manufacturing, or for whom a job in food safety and quality assurance is new.
Hence, pick and choose articles of most use to your situation as the series moves along. Yet do look at each one with a fresh pair of eyes–all of us could use a refresher in how best to manage the risk of Listeria in a plant, regardless of experience level. All plants and situations are different, so there is no “cookie-cutter” solution. If there were, we wouldn’t keep seeing recalls due to possible Listeria contamination. And we wouldn’t keep repeating history in that regard. We need to avoid complacence.
The ultimate objectives of this series are to provide suggestions of what can be done to manage food safety risks in a plant, and, at the same time, increase the company’s capability at providing safe food products and protecting public health.
See the Related Articles below to read the series.
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