The high standard of food safety in the Netherlands is under pressure due to changes in the food production chain. Detecting and typing foodborne pathogens helps to gain and maintain insight into the route these pathogens take towards humans, Linda Verhoef argues in her oration.

Food safety standards in the Netherlands are currently high. This is the result of continuous safety assurance throughout the food chain. The Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), which makes Verhoef's special chair possible, contributes to this as a regulator. Nevertheless, people regularly get sick from food.

Identifying and characterizing pathogens, both in humans and in the food production chain, helps to trace the source and provides insight into the pathogen's route through the food chain to humans. Changes in the food production chain present an ongoing challenge to food safety, which can shift sources and risks. However, new techniques offer new opportunities to better understand this, Verhoef argues.

The goal of the chair is to prepare the NVWA for changing food safety risks. According to Verhoef, an epidemiological approach - combined with microbiome analysis - offers opportunities to investigate whether genotype profiles can be indicators of changes in food production systems.

This oration can be followed live here.