New consortium aims to improve global food safety

A new consortium has been formed by IBM Research and Mars to gain insights on global food safety.

The Consortium for Sequencing the Food Supply Chain is a collaborative effort that will see scientists explore how genetic data can be used to enhance food safety.

The consortium will conduct what the group describes as "the largest-ever metagenomics study" to research micro-organisms and what contributes to how they act in a normal factory setting. As part of this research, scientists will observe how living organisms such as bacteria and viruses grow in places such as countertops and factories.

The resulting data could help shape new food safety management approaches. "By mining insights from genomic data, we're seeking to understand how to identify, interpret and ultimately create healthy and protective microbial management systems within the food supply chain," said IBM Research VP and lab director, Jeff Welser.

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