Page 43 - Food & Drink Magazine October 2019

The good, the bad and the listeria
Bioscience company Chr Hansen is using ‘good bacteria’ to fight listeria contamination. Doris Prodanovic speaks to ANZ CEO Kylie Evans to find out how.
WHEN it comes to foods such as processed meats, ready meals, seafood and pre-mixed salads, the risk of listeria contamination is of top concern for manufacturers and processors.
Danish bioscience company Chr Hansen has developed SafePro as a solution to inhibit the growth of listeria bacteria using naturally-occurring ‘good bacteria’ strands, which can be sprayed onto foods during the manufacturing process.
“Our product innovation is based on more than 30,000 microbial strains. We like to refer to them as ‘good bacteria’,” Chr Hansen ANZ CEO Kylie Evans told Food & Drink Business.
“We fingerprint these strains and look for the properties that are going to be of benefit to food and health. Strains from the SafePro range were originally isolated from food products, like sourdough bread or meat where they were found to suppress listeria growth. They really are nature’s way of keeping food safe and fresh.”
Around 80 cases of listeriosis are reported in Australia each year. So far this year there have been eight recalls of listeria contaminated food. Two people died from smoked salmon, and two from contaminated sandwich ingredients.
Although disease and death are rare from listeria infection, it can be serious particularly for pregnant women and their unborn babies, the elderly, and people with diabetes or cancer.
Evans says there is an ongoing cost to brands and loss of reputation when
it comes to a listeria recall, with high-risk products always requiring appropriate good manufacturing practice to ensure food safety.
“Once food leaves a manufacturing site or the supermarket chiller, manufacturers are unable
to control how the customer treats a product – if they leave it out of their fridge or on the bench for longer than they should,” Evans says.
“We know that Australian manufacturers have world class good manufacturing practice and strive for ongoing excellence in food safety. SafePro provides the extra hurdle once products are outside of the control of the manufacturer.”
Chr Hansen’s ‘good bacteria’ product operates in three ways – it produces bacteriocins that destroys the listeria cell walls, which “grows very well,” says Evans, so it can outcompete listeria for nutrients and space in the food products, as well as using quorum sensing to rally other bacteria to help fight against listeria.
Evans says that in addition to saving lives, another use of bioprotective cultures would be to reduce unnecessary food waste by extending products’ shelf life.
“$20 billion of food per year in Australia goes to waste, often due to the expiry date. Using our bioprotective cultures can add conservatively an extra seven days to the shelf life of a
yoghurt, which means we can potentially reduce waste of that product alone by thirty per cent.
“SafePro bioprotective cultures continue to grow and multiply across the shelf-life of the product, the protection keeps working once the product leaves the manufacturers and retailers control.”
Chr Hansen is currently working with Australian
manufacturers and trialling SafePro in their factories, with launches expected later in the year. Based in Melbourne, Chr Hansen’s technical team can visit sites and advise the best way to implement the solution in the facilities, such as food-grade nozzles and spray systems to use a precise quantity of SafePro onto the food at the time of manufacture andjustbeforepacking. ✷
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www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | October 2019 | Food&Drink business | 43