Editorial: Ensuring Food Safety and Quality Throughout the Supply Chain

Hamza Saghrouchni^1*Hamada Imtara²Fatima Zahra Jawhari³

• ¹Çukurova University, Adana, Türkiye
• ²Arab American University of Jenin, Jenin, Palestine
• ³Higher Institute of Nursing and Health Techniques, Meknes, Morocco

Ensuring Food Safety and Quality Throughout the Supply ChainCrop diseases pose a constant threat to agricultural production as these can cause significant yield losses and impact food quality. In the past decades, chemical agents such as pesticides have been extensively and repeatedly used, causing many environmental and public health concerns and led to the development of pathogens persistence. On the other hand, after the harvest period, ensuring food safety and quality throughout the supply chain is also essential. Contamination, improper handling, and inadequate storage and transportation practices can lead to foodborne illnesses and impact consumer confidence.Managing diseases sustainably while minimizing reliance on chemical agents is a critical but pivotal challenge to ensure food security and sustainable agriculture production.Sustainable solutions have been found in agents derived from natural sources considered environmentally friendly alternatives to chemical agents, used for controlling diseases and promoting plant growth. Commonly used biological agents in the agri-food field can be divided into two types: living and non-living agents. Living agents include antagonistic microorganisms like bacteria, fungi, and viruses (bacteriophage). Non-living agents include essential oils, plant extracts, plant compounds (like thymol and carvacrol, etc), enzymes, insect pheromones, and RNA interference.These gaps primarily pertain to the insufficient knowledge surrounding emerging pathogens or novel diseases that impact agriculture and livestock, resulting in substantial economic losses and posing challenges to food safety. Investigating the various elements that contribute to the occurrence and dissemination of these diseases, as well as formulating efficacious measures for prevention and control, would be of great significance in addressing this existing research deficiency.This Research Topic aims to identify studies that seek to address research gaps in the field of food safety. This collection welcomes studies exploring biological agents that could prevent and control emerging pathogens and their characterization. Furthermore, factors contributing to the emergence and spread of these pathogens, including the use of pesticides and the antibiotic and antifungal resistance could also be included.This collection welcomes articles, reviews, mini-reviews, and policy papers based on original research are encouraged in this section. Possible subthemes include, but are not limited to, the following: 1) Characterization of the biological control agents. 2) Advanced biological control agents to treat or prevent disease in pre-harvest and during the postharvest period. 3) Insights into the persistence and resistance mechanism of the pathogens throughout the supply chain. 5) Factors contributing to the pathogens' emergence and spread.Within this Research Topic, we have received an excellent collection of articles (15 articles) that cover multiple aspects. The common themes of these articles are adopting the One Health approach to tackle foodborne pathogens and AMR at the animal-human-environment interface and provide evidence-based understanding and complemented the knowledge on available and emerging strategies and technologies to holistically address risk assessment, food safety and public health along the food production chain. Here, we provide a brief commentary on some of the work that has been presented under different aspects outlined in our Research Topic.Tesfaye et al. examined the prevalence of Aspergillus species in three types of feed collected from specialised dairy farms and local markets in three cities in eastern Ethiopia. A total of 180 dairy feed samples were collected and analyzed based on cultural and microscopic characteristics.Additionally, the aflatoxigenic potential of the colonies was tested. Therefore, this study highlights the urgent need for stringent measures in feed quality control to curb its prevalence and the risk of aflatoxin exposure.Owusu et al. explored the levels of coliform contamination, prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and the hygienic practices in goat meat retail stores. The study's findings reveal heightened levels of coliform contamination, the presence of pathogenic and multidrug-resistant bacteria in goat meat, and suboptimal meat handling practices in retail stores. The significance of improving food safety practices in retail settings is emphasized to ensure the safety of goat meat, a matter of increasing importance due to its growing demand globally. HACCP plan for the meat pâté "Phirmennyi" at the "Alteev" meat processing company in Semey, Kazakhstan. The area poses particular environmental food safety challenges because it is close to the former Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site. The findings show that in environmentally impacted places, a structured HACCP system can greatly improve food safety and quality, offering a reproducible model for comparable situations.