Using Science and Technology to Reduce Food Waste and Ensure Food Safety

Jun 22, 2023 (11:00 AM -12:00 PM Eastern Time)

Webinar Description

Increased awareness of pathogen-driven crises such as Listeria monocytogenes has urged the industry to be critical towards food safety and the development of food safety prediction tools using predictive microbiology. The use of these tools has immensely helped the industry to manage the crisis by providing faster prediction of risk assessment of the pathogens in different food products.

Although there is rapid progress in the modeling tools for detecting food safety risks, there is little use of this technology to estimate shelf-life/detect spoilage. While food spoilage is one of the main contributors to the global issue of food waste and hunger-related diseases, every year over 16 million people (about the population of New York) die of hunger. Understanding this problem, developing solutions, and creating social enlightenment are one of the key challenges. Predictive microbiology could provide simple solutions to monitor the loss of product shelf life during storage, distribution, and sale.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understanding food loss and how it affects food security/sustainability.
2. Microbial ecology and physiology of common spoilage culprits: psychotropic, pseudomonads and lactic acid bacteria.
3. Potential solutions to the challenge of food spoilage.
4. Available data and tool development.

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