Although technological advances in the laboratory hold great promise for rapid diagnosis of food samples, the first step in analysis of foods aims to process the sample for downstream analysis. The challenges to sample preparation have circulated throughout the food analytical world for a long period of time. These include low numbers of targeted pathogens in foods, non-culturable microbes, such as viruses, and the decision to enrich, where possible, and to select the most appropriate media for additional growth, followed by plating on solid media that allows isolation of the pathogen.

This symposium will present current efforts to harmonize sample preparation, identify the issues that hamper successful isolation or detection of pathogens, and an insight of what occurs in the development of media, specifically for sample preparation. Bringing together like minds will, at least, keep the discussion progressing to develop efficacious, validated, and accepted sample preparation protocols that can be applied worldwide. Food safety is a global fact and as the title of this symposium implies, anything that begins badly, probably ends with bad consequences.

Presentations