Foodborne Pathogen Inactivation and Antimicrobial Intervention Technologies

Preventing foodborne pathogens from entering the food chain is a paramount task, nevertheless common foods are frequently contaminated with pathogens requiring a terminal kill step in order to prevent foodborne illness outbreaks and product recalls. Historically, kill steps were composed of thermal inactivation as well as fermentation processes, which competitively excludes pathogens as well as making the environment unhospitable to growth due to the presence of organic acids. In more recent years, advanced thermal, and nonthermal technologies have been tested with greater or lesser success to inactivate bacterial, viral and parasitic pathogens in foods.

Some techniques have met with great success (e.g., given gaseous decontamination processes), others with minimal success (e.g., gamma irradiation, due to the poor public perception of the process), and finally some methods have failed dramatically at either inactivating pathogens or being accepted by the public or both. Optimization of these techniques will also lessen food spoilage and excess food waste in contribution to a sustainable food system.

In this special series of publications surrounding the topic, “Foodborne Pathogen Inactivation and Antimicrobial Intervention Technologies” we solicit high quality manuscripts from authors wishing to have their work highlighted in this special issue and by the open access process unique to the Frontiers journal. Areas of pathogen inactivation that might be suitable for publication included:

• Traditional thermal processes
• Advanced thermal inactivation
• Infrared thermal inactivation
• Radio frequency inactivation
• Supercritical CO2
• Unique antimicrobial and essential oils used for inactivation
• Cold plasma
• Pulsed electric field
• Fermentation processes
• Encapsulation of antimicrobials
• Gamma source and electron beam irradiation
• Microwave treatment
• High pressure processing
• Gaseous antimicrobials
• Antimicrobial washes for raw and fresh food products
• Development of bacteriocins for application to foods
• Laser application
• Photoinactivation

We invite original research articles to be submitted for this inaugural issue covering the topic, “Foodborne Pathogen Inactivation and Antimicrobial Intervention Technologies”