A NOK27m (€3.4m) grant from the Research Council of Norway will be put towards the building of a separate pilot plant at Campus Ås, a food science and product development centre based in Norway.
“We hope the facility will be of use, not just for Norway, but other countries that are keen to carry out important research to reduce the risk and presence of pathogenic bacteria in food products, ” Helga Næs, director of food safety and quality at Nofima told FoodProductionDaily.com.
At the unit, both conventional and new food products can be produced deliberately contaminated with pathogens in order to investigate the fate of such microorganisms under different production conditions, said Nofima, a research institution involved in developing the new unit.
This would allow for more accurate studies and validation of pathogen behaviour in food, identifying critical control points and avoiding future food poison outbreaks, according to Nofima.
The pathogen pilot plant will also be used for testing of novel and conventional cleaning and disinfection methods of equipment and whole room disinfection testing.
The grant will be available over the next two years, with the unit scheduled for completion by late next year, or summer 2013 at the latest, said Næs.
First of its kind
The research institution said a survey was carried out to investigate whether facilities similar to the pathogen pilot plant exist in Europe and whether there is an interest for such facilities.
Leading European food research institutes were contacted, and none of the institutes said they were aware of a facility like the proposed pathogen pilot plant, said Nofima.
Næs said as far as she is aware, there is only one other unit in Denmark running similar pathogen tests but is only focused on meat. However, the new unit will have a broad focus which will cover all food products and raw materials.
An example of tests to be run at the new facility is a trial that was previously run by Nofima to investigate the risk for pathogenic E. coli (EHEC) presence in dry fermented sausage, said Næs.
To accomplish this, Nofima designed a mini pilot plant for making dry fermented sausage inside a standard Biosafety level III laboratory.
Here the research institute performed experiments adding EHEC to the sausage batter and followed survival and growth during fermentation, maturation and storage.
Nofima said there is a need to perform similar experiments for other food products which is why a larger, separate facility is required.
The centre forms part of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB) and collaborated on by research institutions such as Nofima AS and Bioforsk.
Nofima said the pilot plant will contribute to strengthening and developing Campus Ås to a core centre at high scientific level both nationally and internationally.
Other developments
The Research Council of Norway grant will also be used to establish Campus Ås as a national centre for Food science and product development and upgrade of pilot plant facilities for food production, packaging and storage.
Nofima said the improved pilot plant facilities will be suitable for full scale food science for dairy, meat, fish, vegetables and cereals, as well the public health risk aspects, which will be addressed at the new pathogen module.