Impacts of Microbial Food Safety in China and Beyond

Microbial food safety remains an important issue in China and throughout the world. Great achievements have been made by regulatory agencies, academia, and the food industry in China over the past two decades since the 10th “five-year plan” (2001–2005) from the perspectives of policy reform, technological improvement and innovation, and implementation of relevant regulations. This Foodborne Pathogens and Disease Special Issue on “Food Safety in China: Current Practices and Future Needs” (Yue et al., 2020) aims to provide an overview of the food safety situation in China with particular focus on microbial hazards—prevalence, novel technologies for detection and control, and future challenges. Developing countries or regions of the world with dramatic socioeconomic transformation could likely benefit from the knowledge and experience gained in China.

Food safety due to microbial pathogens became one of the main issues of concern in China in the early 2000s. Regulatory agencies have worked closely with academic institutions in understanding prevalence of major foodborne pathogens in different categories of food as well as in developing infrastructures across the country, proposing guidelines for risk assessment and control along the food chain, and formulating national reference standards (methods, limits, etc.). All these efforts have contributed significantly to the development of a food safety system that is similar to those already in place in many Western countries. In this special issue, He and Shi (2021) provided a general review on these advances. During this period, China National Centre for Food Safety Risk Assessment (CFSA) and academic partners established national reference standards for microbiological contaminants (Chen et al., 2021) and built foodborne pathogens surveillance system at national and regional levels for recognition of microbial hazards (Li et al., 2021a). Since 2013, the Chinese Foodborne Disease Surveillance Network has started to adopt the whole-genome sequencing (WGS) approach as the routine toolkit for outbreak investigation and source tracking (Li et al., 2021a). A few Chinese groups used a local integrated WGS infrastructure for foodborne outbreak investigation, including an outbreak caused by Salmonella Enteritidis in this issue (Deng et al., 2021) and by a few other well-recognized pathogens (Chen et al., 2020; Elbediwi et al. 2021; Hua et al. 2021; Jiang et al., 2020; Wang et al. 2021; Wu et al. 2021; Xu et al. 2020; Yu et al., 2020).

Over the past 20 years, we have witnessed an increasing number of publications authored by Chinese scientists in peer-reviewed international journals in the field of foodborne pathogens, diseases, and public health. However, knowledge essential for policy makers and those in the food sector regarding the transmission dynamics and contributing factors of foodborne pathogens along the food chain and foodborne disease burden is still largely unknown (Paudyal et al., 2018). In this issue, Dr. Dong's laboratory provided an online freeware for predictive microbiologists to understand practical information for controlling factors in foods and responses of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms (Liu et al., 2021c). Notably, Zhang et al. (2021) applied cutting-edge machine learning to set up a model for identifying suspected outbreaks using data generated by Foodborne Disease Monitoring Reporting System of CFSA. This study has implications for using available data to inform confounding factors of foodborne disease outbreaks, which are largely underreported in China as with other parts of the world.

For mitigation of pathogens in foods, Song, et al. reported using a bacteriophage holin HolGH15 as control measurement for reducing Listeria monocytogenes in foods (Song et al., 2021). Hu et al. (2021a) showed new insight into the mechanism of antimicrobial blue light on bacterial outer membrane compartment such as lipopolysaccharide for its bactericidal action. There are also emerging issues such as transmission of antimicrobial resistance through the food chain and control strategies (Lim and Grohn, 2021).

Disparity of prevalence data for risk ranking in different regions in China as a vast country is another formidable issue. In many regions of China, surveillance data are scare. Hu et al. (2021b) characterized Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli from beef samples in eight provinces representing different regions of China, and others provided the latest information on prevalence of foodborne pathogens across the food production chain (Liu et al., 2021a, b, d; Su et al., 2021). Efforts should continue for regions where there is still a paucity of prevalence data on major pathogens in common food products therefore proper control strategies. Last but certainly not least, continuing attention should be paid to food safety education and the role of social media in food safety science dissemination as well as training of next-generation safeguarders and those of all sectors involved in food operation (Chen and Feng, 2021).

Looking ahead to the next decade and beyond, we envisage a better-structured surveillance system covering the countryside and remote areas across the vast country; enhanced cooperation among policy makers, regulatory agencies, and academic researchers and educators; more guidelines for production of safe foods along the chain; and more proactive measures to be taken by the food industry to protect consumer safety and health. These further endeavors will play a significant part in realizing the goals of the Healthy China 2030 Plan adopted in August, 2016.