Spoilage issues in dairy products have made a number of headlines in recent years and cause consumer dissatisfaction and concerns. Similar to PulseNet allowing for linkage of common source foodborne disease cases that occur over wide spatial and temporal scales, social media (e.g., Twitter) facilitate linkage between rare food spoilage issues that would have gone unrecognized even 5 years ago. Consequently, there is a need to share industry experiences on dairy spoilage issues and to develop new approaches to control the wide range of organisms that can cause spoilage in different dairy products. This symposium will cover spoilage issues ranging from Yeast and Molds, to sporeforming bacteria and lactic acid bacteria that can cause dairy product spoilage and off flavors. In addition, this symposium will provide information on the development and implementation of environmental sampling plans that are intended to prevent spoilage issues, including how to balance use of indicator and spoilage organism tests. Presenters will also discuss use of molecular tools for source tracking of spoilage organisms, including trace-back for sporeformers to on-farm sources.

Presentations