When government officials need expert opinions, they often turn to academia for advice. The University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety has a long history of working with such entities to help ensure a safe global food supply, and its involvement in government matters deepened last fall when the center’s director participated in a high-profile review of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

According to the University of Georgia Center for Food Safety study, SARS-CoV-2 experimentally introduced onto berries remained infectious on frozen berries for at least a month. Refrigerating berries at 39 degrees Fahrenheit showed a 90% reduction in SARS-CoV-2 infectivity over the course of three days, as did washing berries before freezing.

Foodborne illnesses affect more than 600 million people each year worldwide. In 2018, the U.N. General Assembly established June 7 as World Food Safety Day to bring awareness of foodborne risks and “to celebrate the myriad benefits of safe food.”

As home canning season approaches, a University of Georgia food safety expert stressed the need for proper precautions to avoid foodborne illness. A recent death in Washington state was attributed to botulism, a toxin that is a byproduct of the heat-resistant spores of a bacterium called Clostridium botulinum that likely originated from a home-canned food.

Researchers from the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety and Department of Food Science and Technology are expanding their global networks to increase the safety of the global food supply in the U.S. and abroad. 

Researchers from the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety have developed software that functions as an important step in improving the accuracy of DNA sequence analysis when testing for microbial contamination.

Carla Schwan has been hired as an assistant professor and University of Georgia Cooperative Extension specialist in food safety and home food preservation in UGA’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences. She is slated to get started January 2022.

Adulting is hard.

World Food Safety Day is celebrated annually on June 7. When it comes to researching ways to reduce the impact of harmful microorganisms in the food supply, the University of Georgia has an internationally recognized reputation in food safety research, with microbiologists throughout the university examining ways to improve food safety both within the U.S. and globally.