PRESERVATION MICROBIOLOGY AND SAFETY - QUO-VADIS

The incidence of food-poisoning illness in European countries appears to be rising year by year. At the same time, there are strong and increasing demands from consumers for foods that are more convenient, more natural and less heavily processed and preserved. With such a reduction taking place in the preservation of foods, how are we going to achieve a real reduction in the incidence of food poisoning from manufactured foods? Or how are we going to design new preservation combinations? In this Viewpoint article, we locus on the need for a better understanding of not only how but also why multiple stresses imposed by the use of combination presentation methods affect the physiology of microorganisms.