Microbial Adaptation in Food and the Processing Environment: Implications for Food Safety and Quality

Dear Colleagues,

Food processing is a collection of methods or techniques required to transform food to make it more wholesome and nutritious for consumers as well as to enhance its safety, quality and stability. Food processing includes thermal and non-thermal interventions as well as chemical treatments, all with the view of controlling microorganisms. However, there has been increasing academic curiosity as well as attention paid to the industry on the survivability and adaptation of foodborne pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms in food following processing, in addition to the persistence of pathogens in food facilities, which can re-contaminate food post-process. In fact, some food processing methods can induce sublethal injury to cells which can adapt, thereby contributing to enhanced survival in food, the environment, or a host, decreased susceptibility to noxious agents including sanitizers and antibiotics, and increased virulence among other attributes. Moreover, surviving organisms may enter the Viable But Non-Culturable (VBNC) state, thereby escaping detection by traditional culturing methods. Viable pathogenic and spoilage organisms in processed food are clearly of great significance to the food industry, especially in the face of greater consumer exigencies, sustainability concerns, and the complexity of global food trade. In this Special Issue of Foods, we welcome the submission of manuscripts, both original research and review articles, concerning the phenomenon of microbial survival and adaptation strategies in processed food or in the food processing environment. Research areas may also cover adaptive mechanisms such as cold and heat shock tolerance, cross-resistance, antibiotic resistance, biofilm formation, virulence as well as the molecular basis for these strategies.

Prof. Dr. Karl R. Matthews
Dr. Hudaa Neetoo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• food safety
• shelf life
• spoilage
• thermal processing
• non-thermal processing
• preservatives
• disinfectants
• sublethal injury
• dormancy
• viable but non-culturable state
• biofilms
• spores
• stress
• adaptation
• gene expression