Prevention and Corrective Strategies for Foodborne Pathogen Control in Meat, Meat Products and Processing Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Meat is by far the main source of protein in the human diet. Despite biosecurity practices in the meat industry, the high incidence of bacterial foodborne pathogens, such as Salmonella spp., Campylobacter jejuni, E. coli O157:H7, and Staphylococcus aureus, among others, is still an issue of concern and a major cause of outbreaks linked to the consumption of contaminated meat and meat products causing great morbidity and mortality, and economic losses. Moreover, these are capable of associating in biofilms giving them an outstanding capacity for adaptation and survival against harsh environmental conditions (i.e., antibiotics and disinfectants) thus becoming a recalcitrant source of contamination. Additionally, there is a variety of zoonotic parasitic agents such as Trichinella spiralis, Toxoplasma gondii, Sarcocystis spp., or Echinococcus spp. that humans can also acquire by consuming raw or under-cooked meat, causing severe illness. Lastly, the design of novel preventive strategies against hazards such as Norovirus, Rotavirus, and Hepatitis (A and E) virus, capable of resisting common hygienization techniques, such as freezing or acidic treatments, is still an issue to tackle. Considering all the above, the need for improvement of the already existing biosecurity procedures and the development of new, efficient, target-specific strategies for pathogen control is necessary to increase both the shelf life and safety of meat and meat products.

This Special Issue of Foods will gather research articles dealing with current and novel strategies specifically designed for pathogen prevention and control in meat, meat products, and processing environments.

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Meat and meat products 
• Meat production chain 
• Meat foodborne pathogens 
• Safety of meat products 
• Current tools for meat quality prediction 
• Omics of meat qualities 
• Rearing practices and impact on carcass and meat 
• Big-data, statistical tools, and meta-analysis