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Bacterial toxins are food safety hazards causing about 10% of all reported foodborne outbreaks in Europe. Pertinent to Gram‐positive pathogens, the most relevant toxins are emetic toxin and diarrheal enterotoxins of Bacillus cereus, neurotoxins of Clostridium botulinum, enterotoxin of Clostridium perfringens, and a family of enterotoxins produced by Staphylococcus aureus and some other staphylococci. These toxins are the most important virulence factors of respective foodborne pathogens and a primary cause of the related foodborne diseases. They are proteins or peptides that differ from each other in their size, structure, toxicity, toxicological end points, solubility, and stability, types of food matrix to which they are mostly related to. These differences influence the characteristics of required detection methods. Therefore, detection of these toxins in food samples, or detection of toxin production capacity in the bacterial isolate, remains one of the cornerstones of microbial food analysis and an essential tool in understanding the relevant properties of these toxins. Advanced research has led into new insights of the incidence of toxins, mechanisms of their production, their physicochemical properties, and their toxicological mode of action and dose‐response profile. This review focuses on biological, immunological, mass spectrometry, and molecular assays as the most commonly used detection and quantification methods for toxins of B. cereus, C. botulinum, C. perfringens, and S. aureus. Gathered and analyzed information provides a comprehensive blueprint of the existing knowledge on the principles of these assays, their application in food safety, limits of detection and quantification, matrices in which they are applicable, and type of information they provide to the user. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and globalization may impact the microbiological food safety on fresh produce that is eaten raw. Hence, food risk communication to inform consumers needs to be carried out. The present study investigates affective and cognitive reactions of individuals towards a risk message with regard to the emerging food safety risks, using the risk-as-feelings theory and the affect heuristic as a theoretical basis. This research elaborates on whether these reactions towards a risk message vary across some European countries (i.e. Norway, Spain, Serbia and Belgium). The results show that compared to affective reactions, cognitive reactions have a higher predictive influence on behavioural intentions (i.e. the intention to alert loved ones, rinse fresh produce better, think about how to avert the risk and seek information). Both affective and cognitive reactions, as well as their predictive impact, differ significantly amongst the countries. Trust in the government, subjective knowledge about the topic and behavioural intentions differ as well per country. Based on these varying results of the impacts of affective and cognitive reactions on behavioural intentions that were observed in different countries, it is recommended that risk communication strategies be adapted on a national rather than on a European level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fresh produce companies operate their food safety management systems (FSMS) in a complex context. On the one hand, during setting and operating their FSMS activities, companies need to consider the riskiness of the ‘FSMS context’ of the company, including the risk of product and production, and the limitations and opportunities of the organisational and chain characteristics. On the other hand, companies with their narrow ‘FSMS context’ and actual FSMS, can be influenced by the ‘broad context’ in a country and sector. This paper presents an analytical framework with operational tools that enable assessment of the status of FSMS in view of the context riskiness at company level, and exploration of the influence of the ‘broad context’ in a country and sector. The latter was defined to include: food safety governance, agro-climatic, market, and public policy environment. Empirical data from three case studies of leafy greens production, intentionally chosen to represent three European regions with their specific contexts, was used to validate the analytical framework. As a conclusion, we postulate that the FSMS output is a function of the broad context in a country and sector, the ‘FSMS context’ in a company, and implemented food safety management system. The model is a first step towards conceptualisation of the complex systems influencing FSMS implementation and operation in companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]