How to manage safety risks in the low-moisture food sector?

Low-moisture foods such as dried fruits, seeds, tree nuts and wheat flour — once considered to carry minimal microbial risks — are facing increasing food safety risks, but research on this food sector remains limited.

To tackle this, Purdue University researchers looked into key barriers in ensuring the safety of low-moisture foods. Their study — aimed at better understanding the food safety culture, research and education needs, and barriers to adopting food safety-enhancing technologies — found issues with hygienic design, risk communication, behavioural change and limited resources as some of the key barriers.

Human factors

The team focused on the human factors influencing food safety, specifically people’s expectations, perceptions and behaviours surrounding low-moisture food handling. The participants included professionals from government agencies, food industry companies and academia.

Associate Professor Yaohua Feng and PhD student Han Chen, along with colleagues at other institutions, developed a two-part needs assessment in collaboration with the Center for Low-Moisture Food Safety, which is funded by the US Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

“When it comes to food safety, unfortunately, we usually react rather than being proactive,” Feng said. “And, for a long time, sanitation technologies and validation data were developed based on high-moisture food matrix. There’s more literature on those foods — how to conduct validation studies and sanitise properly. For example, while water is essential for washing and sanitising equipment in a facility producing high-moisture foods, you wouldn’t want to introduce water into low-moisture food processing — it can cross-contaminate and create more problems.”

Stakeholders were eager to contribute insights and collaborate on the project. According to Feng, “We don’t often see the industry being so open, especially bigger players. Having stakeholders willing to participate and talk about their weaknesses is a new approach.”

A conceptual framework

Based on feedback from the 25 participants, a conceptual framework for food safety culture was developed that includes three key components: infrastructure conditions; an individual’s food safety knowledge, attitudes and risk perceptions; and organisational conditions.

The study also revealed several infrastructure-related challenges, noting that food safety is often not prioritised when facilities are first designed.

“In the past, microbial food safety in low-moisture foods wasn’t a focus for consumers and most manufacturers,” Feng said. “Hygienic design was not being considered in many legacy manufacturing facilities when building plants.

“On the other hand, low-moisture food safety to consumers is also even newer than to the industry. There are no inspectors to regulate or educate consumers in their home kitchen.”

Another critical finding is the challenge of communicating food safety risks within the industry. Since low-moisture foods are often perceived as inherently safe, convincing upper management and employees to invest in food safety initiatives can be difficult.

“With these communication challenges, you should tailor the risk-communication messages to your target audiences,” Chen said. “For example, upper management is usually the decision-maker of resources spent on changes toward food safety. The consequences of being involved in an outbreak or recall can be emphasised when communicating the risks with them.

“One outbreak could have a detrimental impact on the company and even on the entire industry.”

Image credit: iStock.com/Olenaa

To view the original article written by Devyn Raver, click here.