Abstract

Foodborne illness poses significant health and economic challenges, costing billions annually. Pathogens in food products arise from various sources (ingredients, poor hygienic practices, environment) and the use of bacteriophages as biocontrol agents may offer promise in reducing bacterial levels in foods without the drawbacks of traditional chemical sanitizers. Thus, the study aimed to isolate bacterial strains from fresh shrimp, turkey, and beef products, and identify strains that are good bacteriophage hosts (using plaque assay), as well as conduct a microbiological safety assessment of the products using standard traditional (total viable bacterial and coliform counts, biochemical characterisation) and molecular (16S rRNA sequencing) methods. It assessed total bacterial and colony counts across the samples, revealing variations between them. Notably, Paenibacillus pectinilyticus emerged as the predominant strain, followed by Raoultella planticola, Klebsiella pneumonia, Neobacillus niacin, Enterobacter asburiae, and Serratia grimesii. Of the seven (7) bacterial strains identified using 16S rRNA molecular characterization, only four showed potential as good phage hosts. As another key finding, emerging pathogens like S. grimesii, E. asburiae and R. planticola were identified from the products for the first time. Again, over 57% of the time probable microbial identities from traditional techniques did not align with molecular identities (99.28-100% identity coverage). Hence, molecular methods cannot be overemphasized in ensuring the accuracy of microbial identities, and detecting emerging pathogens. The presence of emerging pathogens, high coliform and viable bacterial counts further indicated the unsafe nature of these fresh products. The screening for, and identification of food-based bacteriophages may hold promise as alternative bio-control tools against foodborne infections. However, further research is warranted to elucidate their characteristics and efficacy in enhancing food safety.