Novel sensor strategies for the rapid detection of fungal and bacterial spores in liquid foods. Development of biosensors for the detection of molds and spores in food and application in selected companies.

SenSpores is a German-Dutch project funded with a total volume of 2.924.517,39€ with the duration: 01.11.2023 - 31.10.2027.

Facts

- 88 million tons of food are wasted in the EU every year
- 19% only in the food processing sector

To counteract this negative trend, a law is to be introduced in the EU by 2030 to reduce waste in the food industry by 10%.

The initial situation

Every company in the food industry is obliged to produce food safely. This means that companies must continuously carry out microbiological tests to monitor the production process and the end products. However, conventional microbiological tests only provide a reliable result for the detection of vegetative cells after approx. 5 days, and it can even take up to 10 days for the detection of molds. By this time, the product is often already on the store shelves or even in the hands of the consumer. The problem can then usually only be solved by expensive product recalls, which also damage the company's image.

The Interreg project Sen Spores combines the expertise from two successful Interreg projects with three important competencies, food safety - microbiology - sensor technology, to obtain microbiological results in near real time

The UM Department of Sensor Technology has recently developed a technology that could provide a solution.

Recently, a sensor technology has been developed that can detect microbiological contamination. In SenSpores, the Hochschule Niederrhein's Faculty of Microbiology and Food Safety will further implement this technology, which has been validated on a laboratory scale, in industry with the help of regional SMEs. The specialization here is on the detection of moulds.

Certain fungi are able to form spores that are highly resistant to pasteurization and can re-contaminate food at a later date.

In addition to the legally required analyses, the new sensor technology could also be used to carry out routine internal checks, enabling contamination to be detected quickly and thus saving costs, resources and energy in the long term through early action.