International Conference on Food Microbiology August 08-10, 2016 Birmingham, UK

Fermented food and beverage play an important role in the diet of people in many parts of the world. Fermented food provide important sources of nutrient and have great potential in maintaining health and preventing diseases. These harbour diverse microorganism from the environment, which include molds, yeast and bacteria, mostly lactic acid bacteria, bacilli and micrococci. There are many different types of fermented foods and beverages  produced in world wide. These include cereal-based fermented food, fermented milks,  and non-alcoholic beverage, fermented fruits and vegetables, and fermented meat. Beside the beneficial microorganisms some spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms are also present. Spoilage microorganisms spoil the food and are not harmful to humans. Pathogenic microorganisms are disease-causing microorganisms. The living microorganism or a toxin (microbial waste product) must be consumed to cause symptoms associated with specific pathogenic microorganisms.

The epidemiology of foodborne infection is changing. New pathogens have emerged, and some have spread worldwide. Many bacteria including Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Campylobacter, and Yersinia enterocolitica, have reservoirs in healthy food animals, from which they are spreadind to an increased variety of foods. These pathogens cause millions of cases of sporadic illness and chronic complication, as well as large and challenging outbreaks over many states and nations. Improved surveillance that combines rapid subtyping method, cluster identification, and collaborative epidemiologic investigation can identify large, dispersed outbreaks. Outbreak investigations and case-control studies of sporadic cases can identify infection sources and guide the development of specific prevention strategies. Better understanding of how pathogens are persisting in animal reservoirs is also critical to successful long-term prevention. Prevention of foodborne disease will increasingly depend on contamination control of feed and water consumed by the animals themselves. 

The study of microbiogical ecology can help us improve our lives via the use of microbes in environmental restoration, food production, and bioengineering in case of antibiotics, food supplements, and chemicals. The study of these bizarre and diverse creature that are everywhere yet nowhere to be seen is fascinating and a pursuit that appeals to curiousity and playfulness in us. Microbiological ecologists seek to understand how microbes affect the environment on a global scale. For that microbiological hunting is necessary. Microbial ecology also drives several processes necessary for ecosystem function, sustainability and production, comprising the cycling of energy and nutrients through ecosystem, and giving resistance and degradation mechanism for toxins. Environmental sustainability depends on proficient functioning of all such processes.

The microbial safety of food has been advanced substantially by the introduction and implementation of the hazard analysis of critical control point (HACCP) concept. It provides a systematic conceptual framework for identifying hazards and focusing on the proper functioning of key food production, processing and marketing steps.The complexity of the pre-harvest, harvest and post-harvest environments make it impossible to control all potential source of microbial contamination. Efforts at control and prevention are implemented throughout the food production and processing system. Researchers are searching for a better understanding of the pathogen and their interaction with the environment, leading to improved control methods. But at the same time, the pathogens continue to evolve, and human actions drive that evolution. Even small environmental change can have unforeseen or even unforeseeable impact on microbiological populations. Improved understanding of these complex factor provides insight into pathogen evolution and opens the door to improved prevention and control methods.

Singlecell proteins (SCP) are the dried cells of microorganism, which are used as protein supplement in human foods or animal feeds. Microorganisms like bacteria, algae, fungi and yeast utilize inexpensive feedstock and wastes as sources of energy for growth to produce biomass, amino acids or protein concentrate. Since protein accounts for the quantitatively important part of the microbiological cells, these microorganisms, also called single cell protein as natural protein concentrate. With the increased population and worldwide protein shortage the use of microbial biomass as food and feed is more highlighted. Although it has high nutritive value due to higher protein, vitamin, essential amino acids and lipid content, there is a doubt to replace the conventional protein sources due to their high nucleic acid content and slower in digestibility. They may be considered as foreign material by body, which may subsequently results in allergic reactions.

The roles of microorganisms in agriculture, food industry and public health have been the point of interest since long time for their exploitation. Although only a fraction of microbial diversity was accessed by microbiologists earlier for harnessing them owing to limited techniques. The molecular techniques have opened new vistas to access the wide field of the unexplored microorganisms and their exploitation for useful genes and novel metabolites. Sincere efforts have been made in biotechnology using microorganisms leading to improve our life with respect to agriculture and people health. The biotechnological developments using microorganisms potential have enabled us combat the environment and human health problems worldwide in ecofriendly.

Food may be contaminated from outside sources on the way from the field to the processing plant, or during transport, storage and distribution. There are thousands of different types of micro-organisms everywhere in air, water,soil and foods, and in the digestive tract of animals and human. Fortunately, the majority of microbes usefully functions in the environment and in some branches of of food industry, such as production of wine, beer, dairy products , bakery products, etc. On the other hand unwanted food spoilage is generally caused by microbes and contamination of food with pathogens causes food safety problems.The micro-organisms occurring on and in foods are divided into three groups: bacteria, yeast and molds. Molds are generally concerned in the food spoilage; their use in the food industry is limited.Yeasts are the most widely used microbes in the food industry due to their ability to ferment sugars to ethanol and carbon-dioxide. Some types of yeast, like baker’s yeasts are grown industrially, and some may be used as protein sources, mainly in animal feed. Bacteria are important in food microbiology may be divided into groups according to the fermentation product, e.g. lactic acid bacteria, propionic acid bacteria, acetic acid bacteria. Bearing in mind the food constituent attacked, prolytic, saccharolytic and lipolytic bacteria may be distinguished.

Fungi may be the food or the food edible following processing. Processing may make it possible to consume the food stuff by modifying, adding or removing components, including flavours, nutritional elements to enhance the appeal of food. These are the contributor to the processing of food. Their use dates back to the start of civilisation, when breads and wines were first made deliberately. These days, the selection and use of fungi is a highly organised field of research and development in food industry.  Fungi can also present health risks by the production of specific toxic agent called mycotoxin, which are often poorly understood, but are being increasingly recognised as agents of both acute and chronic toxicity in humans and animals. In the research area of Food Mycology, the physiology and molecular biology of filamentous fungi play a role as spoilage or toxin-producing organisms are investigated. The research focuses on the elucidation of the regulatory mechanism for mycotoxin biosynthesis at both molecular and physiological level. The emphasis of these investigation is on the influences of environmental conditions which lead to mycotoxin synthesis in the plant food product. This approach aims to develop new procedures which prevent mycotoxin production in such foods. 

Predictive microbiology is the quantitative science that enables users to evaluate objectively the effect of processing, distribution and storage operation on the microbial safety and quality of foods. Food microbiology has adopted novel concepts and modern methods with some reluctance. Many food microbiologists follow the “old fashioned” approach of enumerating microorganisms at different stages of food storage, identifying the major fractions of the microflora by their phenotypic characters, and building up an understanding of the shelf-life and safety of foods. However fascinating this is to the food microbiologist, it is expensive and slow, and has not led to a cumulative, structured database of information that can be interrogated quickly. Study of the effects on microbial growth of single controlling factors such as pH, temperature or water activity, resulted in acceptance that particular microbes of concern would not grow below certain pH, or below a certain temperatures or water activity. All foods contain water; have a temperature of storage and a pH value. If the growth response determined by those controlling factors could be measured, then modelled, the result would indicate the growth rate attributed to those three factors. If the differences between the calculated and observed responses were significant, then other factors would have to be taken into account. Comparisons of growth rates published in the scientific literatures with predictions from such relatively simple models for the same conditions of temperature, pH and water activity were often very close and encouraged further efforts. Gradually, using models that had been validated by comparing outputs with independent data became recognized. Occasionally it is important to have an accurate estimate of the growth or survival, but more often it is sufficient to have a reasonable estimate, but quickly. It is necessary to obtain good and quick estimations of the shelflife of foods, in which pathogenic bacteria might grow, in new product development and in risk assessment.

During handling, harvesting and processing operations food may become contaminated with a wide range of microorganisms. Subsequently, during storage and distribution only a small fraction of these will develop and cause serious deterioration. Which microbes will develop or what biochemical reactions occur is dependent upon food derived or environmental factors. Spoilage of food may be caused by a wide range of reactions including some that are mainly physical or chemical, others due to action of enzymes or microbes. The primary factors associated with food spoilage are associated with intrinsic properties of food which include endogenous enzymes, substrates, sensitivity for light, oxygen and cross contamination during slaughter,harvesting and processing in combination with temperature abuse. For fresh foods the primary quality changes may be categorized as (i) bacterial growth and metabolism resulting in possible pH-changes and formation of toxic compounds, gas, slime-formation and off-odors, (ii) oxidation of lipids and pigments in fat-containing foods resulting in undesirable flavors, formation of compounds with adverse biological effects or discoloration. Although interrelated with the microbiological spoilage, the last category is purely chemical in nature and will, all other things being equal increase in importance with decreasing temperature. Little is known about the relationship between microbial activity and biochemical spoilage parameter under different packaging and storage conditions. Although there is much progress in the characterization of the total micro flora and metabolites developing during spoilage, not much is known about the identification of specific microbes in relation to food composition. 

The interest in establishing scientific credibility for probiotic effects is of high importance to companies and scientists. Research to support health will have to take into account the intestinal microbiota and its interaction with the host. One of the reasons that raised skepticism in the field is the vast array of health benefits attributed to Lactic acid bacteria strains especially and the variety or diversity of experimental approaches. The recently developed molecular techniques will certainly help in acquiring a better understanding of the complex interaction between the gut ecosystem and the probiotic strain. A multidisciplinary approach, combining molecular taxonomy and biology,  immunology, modern microbial ecology, physiology, gastroenterology and biochemistry, will be necessary to gain knowledge in the crosstalk that most certainly takes place between the the host cells and intestinal microbes. While unraveling of the mechanism of action may greatly facilitate future selection of novel probiotic strains with a specific health benefit, any postulated effects will have to be definitely proven by well-conducted clinical studies. This might be easier to achieve when targeting the improvement of pathological situations.

Entrepreneurs Investment Meet is a platform to connect entrepreneurs and investors worldwide. It aims to bring together all existing and budding bio entrepreneurs to share their experiences and present new innovations and challenges in food microbial community. This can facilitate the most optimized and viable meeting place for engaging people in global business discussions, evaluation and execution of promising business ideas. An investor could be able to find out the highest potential investment opportunities globally, which provide good return on investment. For entrepreneurs, this would be an ideal place to find out suitable investors and partners to start and/or expand their business. Microbiology is complex and rapidly changing and requires a specialized knowledge to understand the value of the innovation and its competitive position in the industry. Although microbiologist are typically the founders of biotech companies; studies have shown that the most successful high tech start-ups are founded by a team of two to three individuals with mixed backgrounds, substantial industry experience and a very clear market and product focus at founding. This conference will bring food microbiology experts in areas ranging from international and local/regional issues in food safety and food hygiene to food biotechnology, and to the application of molecular approaches in all aspects of modern food microbiology.