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CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

Sec. Agro-Food Safety

Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1646792

A FoodsafeR Perspective on Emerging Food Safety Hazards and Associated Risks

Provisionally accepted
  • 1Kansas State University, Manhattan, United States
  • 2Universitat fur Bodenkultur Wien, Vienna, Austria
  • 3FFoQSI GmbH, Tulln, Austria
  • 4Veterinarmedizinische Universitat Wien, Vienna, Austria
  • 5Queen's University Belfast School of Biological Sciences, Belfast, United Kingdom
  • 6Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand
  • 7IRIS Technology Solutions SL, Cornellà de Llobregat, Spain
  • 8Universiteit Gent Vakgroep Biotechnologie, Ghent, Belgium
  • 9Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
  • 10Academy of National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, Beijing, China
  • 11University of Nairobi Department of Biology, Nairobi, Kenya
  • 12USDA-ARS Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Beltsville, United States
  • 13Health Canada Health Products and Food Branch, Ottawa, Canada
  • 14National Centre for Food Science, Singapore, Singapore
  • 15US Food and Drug Administration Human Foods Program, College Park, United States
  • 16Istituto di Scienze delle Produzioni Alimentari Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Bari, Italy
  • 17Michigan State University, East Lansing, United States
  • 18International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan, Nigeria
  • 19Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy
  • 20Food Standards Agency, London, United Kingdom
  • 21Universite Laval, Québec City, Canada
  • 22Global Food Regulatory Science Society (GFoRSS), Quebec, Canada, Laval, Canada
  • 23Barilla G e R Fratelli, Parma, Italy
  • 24Universitat fur Bodenkultur Wien Department fur Biotechnologie, Vienna, Austria
  • 25Queen's University Belfast Institute for Global Food Security, Belfast, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Abstract The recently launched FoodSafeR initiative is a cooperative and coordinated approach to the 50 identification, assessment, and management of emerging food safety hazards and associated risks—both chemical and microbial. The FoodSafeR consortium includes global stakeholders across government, academic and industrial institutions involved in food safety, research, and production. Consortium members have led in-depth discussions on identifying, assessing and managing chemical and microbial food safety issues resulting from climate change, emerging 55 microbial and chemical contaminants, and evolving dietary preferences. Food safety research often is episodic in nature, increasing after a crisis and then decreasing when there are no major problems. Timely communications about and a central source containing data on previous outbreaks were identified as crucial issues to reduce the harm that could result from a food safety issue. In the course of the discussions, both new and old microbial and chemical hazards 60 were identified for inclusion in a central database. The database could be used to develop artificial intelligence (AI) models to explain and predict existing and emerging food safety risks. The FoodSafeR hub continuously collects and merges government, academic and private sector data to enable all stakeholders to better understand emerging risks, both chemical and microbial, and where they are found. As the database expands, climate change impacts on food 65 safety can be documented and then integrated with public health data to rigorously assess the contributions of food safety to public health risks. The overall goal is to enhance global data sharing, improve food safety standards, and ensure the production of safe, accessible food for all populations thereby reducing the economic burden of foodborne illnesses, enhancing food security, and promoting sustainable food systems. The goal of this presentation is to alert the 70 global food safety community of the availability of this new resource and to provide information on the types of data it contains while encouraging others to contribute data that

Keywords: Agri-food system, Climate change, emerging contaminants, Microbial contaminants, Chemical contaminants, Risk assessment-, Mycotoxins, heavy metals

Received: 13 Jun 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Leslie, Ezekiel, Wagner, Elliott, McNerney, Uyttendaele, Wu, Wang, Okoth, Lindsay, Rawn, Chan, Zhang, Lattanzio, Wu, Bandyopadhyay, Dupouy, Wearne, Godefroy, Suman and Krska. 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: Rudolf Krska, Universitat fur Bodenkultur Wien Department fur Biotechnologie, Vienna, Austria

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