Food + forensics: FAPC team helps producers safeguard products before they arrive on grocery store shelves
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Media Contact: Sophia Fahleson | Digital Communications Specialist | 405-744-7063 | sophia.fahleson@okstate.edu
Food safety begins long before manufacturing and production — it starts at the most fundamental level: the ingredients.
While food safety and microbiology evaluation typically occur after a product is developed and concerns arise, true food safety begins in the early stages of production, said Darren Scott, food technology program manager for the Oklahoma State University Robert M. Kerr Food and Agricultural Products Center.
“When creating a product, we have to consider all of the ingredients,” Scott said. “We look at how ingredients interact together and how it will affect taste, shelf life and product efficiency.”
The FAPC began its mission to add value to food and agricultural products across Oklahoma in 1997. The FAPC team strives to help companies produce a perfect product so fewer complications occur later, Scott said.
However, when products are recalled or concerns about production methods happen, Peter Muriana, OSU Extension specialist for food microbiology at the FAPC, provides support.
“Muriana has a good reputation,” said Chuck Willoughby, business and marketing relations manager at the FAPC. “His standing is well known throughout the food industry for validation, validation studies and post-package pasteurization.”
If the U.S. Department of Agriculture has concerns about how to ensure the safety of a particular product, Willoughby said, they turn to the expert they trust most: Muriana.
Validation is used as a third-party authenticator for food processors. This type of validation is common, and although some large manufacturers have their own food microbiologists in-house, most cannot afford such a luxury, Willoughby said.
The FAPC provides those services and many other resources to small and large producers that need third-party validation, he added.
Food validation happens in one of three ways. An expert can look at the published peer-reviewed literature to determine if a company’s process is acceptable. They can verify if a product is safe based on chemical parameters, such as water, pH and activity, or test the product’s stability through inoculation, Muriana said.
“The USDA likes you to inoculate a test product, or challenge project, with the pathogen of concern,” Muriana said. “For a type of product with raw beef, salmonella would be the pathogen of concern.”
By inoculating the food product with high levels of a pathogen, one can test how susceptible the product is to contamination, Muriana said.
If a product is easily taken over by the pathogen, then a new formula for production needs to be pursued, Muriana said. However, if the food fights off the bacteria and remains safe, then the production method is considered viable, he added.
“If the product composition can knock out 10 million salmonella per gram of product by itself and does not have any salmonella detectable or recovered, then whatever lower level might be present will not even survive at all,” Muriana said.
The process of food validation is followed up by a validation report to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, Muriana said.
When the USDA-FSIS asks companies for their food safety validation, Muriana said, the companies report they are following Muriana’s protocol.
“Companies say, ‘We’re following Dr. Muriana’s published procedure,’” he said. “And they’re OK with that.”
Offering the food validation service has allowed the FAPC to serve hundreds of companies in meeting USDA compliance, Willoughby said.
“After the Food Safety Modernization Act was passed in 2011,” Willoughby said, “the Food and Drug Administration stepped up their game, and now some manufacturers must comply with the third-party audit systems.”
Through this oversight, consumers can safely purchase products from grocery stores, small businesses and even their favorite fast-food restaurants, Willoughby said.
Validation is also encouraged for food products that do not fit into a regimented process, such as air-dried meat instead of cooked meat, Muriana said. As a result, manufacturers have also benefited from validation as a form of risk mitigation in the instance of a recall, he added.
“There may never be a recall on a certain product, but companies like to be prepared,” Muriana said. “If there is a question about a product, they already have the validation that their product is safe.”
While some validation can occur quickly, within a week or two, other validation tests can take months of trial and error. However, Muriana’s favorite part of the process is the puzzle of it all, he said.
“My favorite part is planning a well-executed experiment to demonstrate the efficacy of a product, the safety of a product, and having the results to show it,” Muriana said. “Especially if I have no prior experience with the product, ingredients or process, that’s where the fun comes in, challenging myself to prove if a process is safe or not.
“I tell my students that it’s like being a bacterial detective,” Muriana added. “I love it.”
Story by Kate Munson | Cowboy Journal