SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Food Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1549719
This article is part of the Research TopicCritical- and High-Priority Pathogens in the Food ChainView all 8 articles
Risk Analysis of Microorganisms in Common Food Spices
Provisionally accepted
- Shanghai Kangshi Food Science and Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China
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Spices play a ubiquitous role in the food industry, imparting distinctive flavors and exhibiting antibacterial properties. Nonetheless, microbial contamination and residues present persistent challenges to food safety within this sector. The systematic tracking of microbial input datasets in spices holds significant guiding implications and economic value for microbial control and risk assessment in the food industry. Furthermore, it serves as a cornerstone for developing early safety warning systems and precise prevention and control frameworks in spice processing. This paper, following a structured literature review methodology, conducts an in-depth analysis of microbial (bacterial and fungal) contamination across 41 commonly utilized spices. It elucidates the exposure risks as-sociated with significant pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms prevalent in spices, categorizes the risk levels pertaining to spices and their corresponding microbial pollution profiles, and delineates an early warning framework for microbial contamination in spices.These findings furnish crucial insights for formulating control strategies targeting microorganisms in the spice sector and iden-tifying key microbial control points within food processing operations.Spices in food refer to substances added to food products to produce, modify, or enhance their flavor, as defined by GB 29938-2020. Natural spices for culinary purposes encompass a range of categories, including natural spices, strong aromatic spices, pungent spices, and delicate flavor spices, totaling 77 types as classified by GB/T 21725-2017.
Keywords: Food spices, Microbial contamination, Microbial input datasets, risk analysis, Food Safety
Received: 21 Dec 2024; Accepted: 14 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xiaoyang Tang, Shanghai Kangshi Food Science and Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China
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