Grant: Alliance Grants

Food safety and one health are the key challenges faced by the Canadian beef industry, especially in the transmission of zoonotic infectious diseases from farm animals, the farm environment or food to humans. In the last two decades numerous large outbreaks of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 (STEC O157) have led to tens of millions of dollars in losses to the beef industry. Although it has been a few years since the XL foods outbreak, another incident is inevitable and there is a need for the Canadian beef industry to continue to pursue new methods to reduce the incidence of this bacterium in the food production chain. Cattle are the main reservoir for STEC O157, and the transmission of this pathogen occurs through fecal shedding into the environment which then contaminates vegetable crops, hides and meat during processing. Several preharvest interventions had been tested, including vaccines, and feed additives, but none of the methods can effectively control fecal shedding of E. coli O157:H7 in cattle. Different from previous approaches, current proposed NSERC Alliance project aims to develop a novel direct fed microbe-based approach to regulate host-microbial interactions for better gut health and eliminate or lower STEC colonization in the gut of cattle. The information obtained and technologies developed by the project will provide industrial applicable solutions to enhance cattle health and reduce the prevalence of this pathogen in the food chain. The overall knowledge generated from this project will help industry to develop and implement cost-effective technologies to improve food safety along the beef supply chain that will benefit agricultural stakeholders and other Canadian stakeholders.