Foodborne illness fears rise
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CLIMATE change and associated severe weather events could result in more outbreaks of foodborne illness, adding pressure to horticulture growers.
In the past few years there have been a number of outbreaks in Australia of foodborne illness due to environmental factors, including 22 cases of listeria due to contaminated rockmelons early last year and 170 cases of salmonella from people eating bagged salads in 2016.
Speaking at the APAC Food Safety Conference in Sydney last week, NSW Department of Primary Industries food incident manager Craig Shadbolt said climate change would prove to be one of the biggest problems for foodborne illness outbreaks.
“In my mind if you are in the business of growing fruit and you haven’t thought about climate change you are in trouble,” Dr Shadbolt said.
“We know severe weather events are increasing as far as
IF PEOPLE GET DESPERATE THEY MIGHT TURN TO SECOND-GRADE WATER, WHICH HASN’T BEEN FILTERED PROPERLY OR TESTED...
CRAIG SHADBOLT
severity.”
He said in the rockmelon incident, heavy rain prior to harvest and subsequent dust storms significantly increased the organic load and amount of listeria on the fruit, causing the outbreak.
Dr Shadbolt said while the rockmelon farm was “well run” the environment put a higher load on the washing system.
He said there would also be “additional pressures” from land use and water availability.
“If people get desperate they might turn to secondgrade water, which hasn’t been filtered properly or tested for run-off manure, so that could have an impact on outbreaks going forward.”
After these outbreaks and last year’s strawberry tampering incident, Dr Shadbolt said traceability has also been recognised as an issue in horticulture.
“Horticulture broadly speaking is less mature than other industries like poultry that have different schemes in place.” He said while whole genome sequencing is having a major impact on detecting major foodborne disease, traceability becomes an issue when the fruit gets to the wholesale level and dispersed from there.