A review: characteristics and prevalence of psychrotolerant food spoilage bacteria in chill-stored meat, milk and fish

As the human population increases globally, the demands for getting high-quality and nutritious food content are also getting higher. However, the emergence of food spoilage microorganisms is remained challenging to fulfil society’s demands in the current food industry. Food spoilage microbes can be introduced into any point across the farm-to-fork supply chain to cause notable degradation in contaminated food, therefore making it unsuitable for human consumption. The majority of food spoilage microbes will not cause serious illness even when consumers have accidentally ingested the contaminated food. Chilling and freezing are commonly used to inhibit microbial proliferation on food quality. However, neither chilling nor freezing are ineffective for psychrotolerant and psychrophilic spoilage microbiota, respectively due to their good adaptation to survive in chilling or freezing temperatures (below 4°C or lower than 0°C) to cause spoilage in refrigerated food. In this article, the process of spoilage development by Brochothrix thermosphacta, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Shewanella putrefaciens in meat, milk and fish, respectively, was reviewed. Meat, milk and fish were chosen as predominance reservoirs for B. thermosphacta, P. fluorescens and S. putrefaciens, respectively. Microbiological descriptions and spoilage symptoms produced by these bacteria were also reviewed in this article. The review concluded that food spoilage would be difficult to control unless certain effective strategies were introduced in the current supply chain. Earlier identification is necessary to detect the prevalence of spoilage bacteria to prevent food wastage.