Food is not commonly regarded as an ecosystem, perhaps on the basis that it is not a ‘‘natural’’ system. Nevertheless an ecosystem it is and an important one, because food plants and the fungi that colonise their fruiting parts (seeds and fruit) have been co-evolving for millennia. The seed and nut caches of rodents have provided a niche for the development of storage fungi. Fallen fruit, as th...

Food is not commonly regarded as an ecosystem, perhaps on the basis that it is not a ‘‘natural’’ system. Nevertheless an ecosystem it is and an important one, because food plants and the fungi that colonise their fruiting parts (seeds and fruit) have been co-evolving for millennia. The seed and nut caches of rodents have provided a niche for the development of storage fungi. Fallen fruit, as th...

Food is not commonly regarded as an ecosystem, perhaps on the basis that it is not a ‘‘natural’’ system. Nevertheless an ecosystem it is and an important one, because food plants and the fungi that colonise their fruiting parts (seeds and fruit) have been co-evolving for millennia. The seed and nut caches of rodents have provided a niche for the development of storage fungi. Fallen fruit, as th...

Genome Sequence of a Food Spoilage Lactic Acid Bacterium, Leuconostoc gasicomitatum LMG 18811, in Association with Specific Spoilage Reactions † Per Johansson,‡ Lars Paulin,‡ Elina Säde, Noora Salovuori, Edward R. Alatalo, K. Johanna Björkroth,‡* and Petri Auvinen‡ Department of Food Hygiene and Environmental Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, and Institute of Biotechnology, Uni...

Problem statement: Spoilage of food products is due to chemical, enzymatic or microbial activities One-fourth of the world’s food supply and 30% of landed fish are lost through microbial activity alone. With the ever growing world population and the need to store and transport the food from one place to another where it is needed, food preservation becomes necessary in order to increase its she...

Microbiological safety is one of the cornerstones of quality control in the food industry. Identification and quantification of spoilage bacteria in pasteurized milk and meat in the food industry currently relies on accurate and sensitive yet time-consuming techniques which give retrospective values for microbial contamination. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spe...

In foodstuffs with low pH, low water activity, or high carbohydrate content spoilage bacteria are, with some exception, usually not present because this environment is unfavourable for their growth. Food-spoilage yeasts and moulds, however, can grow under these circumstances and cause deterioration of various products, such as fruit and vegetable juices and purees, soft drinks, pickled vegetabl...

Soft drinks and fruit juices represent an important market within the food industry. The increasing variety of products being released at a bewildering rate has altered the potential for spoilage problems. Soft drinks are generally nutrientpoor media that are spoiled by relatively few organisms – usually yeasts, and a few acid-tolerant bacteria and fungi. Carbonation shifts the spoilage flora t...

The aim of this study was to optimise the antimicrobial efficacy of plant essential oils (EOs) for control of Listeria spp. and spoilage bacteria using food model media based on lettuce, meat and milk. The EOs evaluated were lemon balm, marjoram, oregano and thyme and their minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) were determined against Enterobacter spp., Listeria spp., Lactobacillus spp., and ...