Metagenome-based surveillance and diagnostic approaches to studying the microbial ecology of food production and processing environments.

Metagenomic-based analyses have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the microbiology of food production and processing environments. By adopting such approaches, it will be possible to more accurately determine sources of microbial contamination, identify critical control points for such contaminants, and select practices that optimize quality and safety. This mini-review will discuss the merits of adopting metagenostic-based approaches, highlight novel insights that they have provided to date and consider how they could be further implemented.