Why focus on emerging microbiological food safety issues?
Recent scientific advances have created the opportunity for new insight into microbiological food safety issues. Our current policies and controls have served us well, but improvements are needed. With new information and tools, we can now create food safety management systems that use science to assess risk and focus our efforts in a flexible and effective manner. Knowing that change is inevitable, we can look ahead to spot new issues as they arise and be prepared to respond. In choosing to focus on emerging microbiological food safety issues, IFT hoped to emphasize the complex, everchanging nature of microbiological food safety. Pathogens evolve, people’s behaviors and susceptibilities differ and change, and production and processing developments modify the microbial environment. We cannot expect to “solve” the problem of microbiological food safety to the point of having a zero-risk food supply. On the other hand, we have the opportunity to look forward and address issues before the
