Research activities of the Laboratory for Food Safety
The laboratory therefore works to produce essential knowledge to:
• identify, quantify and characterise food hazards;
• monitor them (prevalence, exposure);
• describe and model their behaviour to improve quality and hygiene control during food production or preparation;
• understand the mechanisms of action of these hazards (virulence, toxicity, bioaccessibility).
Identify potential resistance (to antibiotics, disinfectants, cleaning products, heavy metals, etc.) and understand the emergence and fate of these hazards throughout the food chain.
Research projects are generally funded through calls for tender at European (Horizon Europe, European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)) or national level (French Research Agency, State-Region plan contracts (CPERs), Special Fund for Agricultural and Rural Development (CASDAR), fields of major interest (DIM) and other regional sources of support).
The laboratory is a host organisation for PhD students from the ABIES Doctoral School of Agriculture, Food, Biology, Environment and Health at Paris-Saclay University and the Alfort National Veterinary School (ENVA), as well as from the STS Doctoral School of Science, Technology and Health (STS) at the Universities of Littoral-Côte-d’Opale (ULCO) and Picardie Jules-Verne (UPJV).
Participation in public-private research units and networks
The laboratory is a partner of several joint technology units (UMTs) and joint technology networks (RMTs). These are scientific and technical partnerships created and supported by the French Ministry of Agriculture. Their mission is to promote collaborative work between teams involved in research, agricultural technical education and agricultural development with a focus on topics of great socio-economic and environmental importance. UMTs are more specifically created with a view to developing national research programmes that produce operational results for short- or medium-term deployment.
The laboratory is involved in:
- the Chlean RMT on the hygienic design of production lines and equipment, and improvement of cleanability.
The aim of the Actia Chlean RMT is to guide businesses towards improving their performance while taking account of economic and societal changes, to enable them to:- ensure and maintain food safety and quality while limiting or eliminating the use of preservatives;
- limit the use of chemicals (for example, during cleaning and disinfection operations);
- improve their offering by diversifying the choice of products, which means more small production runs and managing the risk of cross-contamination.
- the Fastypers UMT: Rapid detection of pathogenic bacteria in food.
In partnership with the technical institutes for the dairy and swine sectors (respectively ACTALIA and IFIP), the Actia Fastypers UMT is aiming to:- gain a better understanding of how the pathogenic bacteria Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella spp. adapt and are able to persist within meat cutting and processing plants;
- identify the underlying genetic determinants.
- the Qualima RMT on management of the microbiological quality of food.
Coordinated by the AERIAL and ACTALIA technical institutes, the Actia Qualima RMT was set up to develop research into microbiologically safe and healthy food, in a context of changing societal expectations. - the Florepro RMT: Bioprotective cultures for preserving food.
The purpose of the Actia Florepro RMT is to identify the barriers and obstacles limiting the application of protective cultures for improving the microbiological quality of foods from four agri-food sectors (meat, seafood, plant-based, dairy/cheese).
Mains research projects
Persistence markers of intracellular Listeria monocytogenes
Partners: Epimic team (Institut Micalis, INRAE)
Funding: French National Research Agency (ANR)
This project aimed to improve knowledge of the intracellular persistence phase of Listeria monocytogenes. The SEL contributed to two components:
- Identifying bacterial determinants of intracellular persistence
- Developing strategies for the detection, quantification and “awakening” of Listeria.
The project’s results were summarised in a joint paper published in PLOS Pathogens.
QUALIMA RMT
The SEL unit has been a member of the Actia QUALIMA joint technology network (RMT) for more than 10 years. Affiliated with the French network of technical institutes in the food industry, Actia QUALIMA currently has a total of 19 partners. Working closely with stakeholders in the field, it aims to develop and optimise decision-support and expert appraisal tools to manage the microbiological quality of food.
For its 2026-2030 term, the RMT has adopted a “One Health” approach focused on:
- analysing the impact of climate change and societal practices on microbiological hazards;
- assessing the effects of sustainable resource management on food safety;
- developing quantitative and multi-criteria methodologies to characterise and optimise risk management;
- assisting the public authorities in their decision-making processes;
- disseminating knowledge to various stakeholders (operators, inspectors, teachers).
Factors contributing to the adaptation of Salmonella in swine and dairy production environments: development of molecular and phenotypic characterisation tools
Partners: AB2R (Fougères Laboratory), B3D (INRAE-Institut Micalis), French Pork and Pig Institute (IFIP), ACTALIA
Funding: FranceAgriMer “Knowledge” call for projects
As part of the Actia Fastypers joint technology unit (UMT), the SalmoBOND project aims to:
- develop an innovative, rapid and specific PCR tool for Salmonella to identify the genomic markers involved in biofilm formation, adaptation and resistance to biocides in strains originating from the dairy and swine sectors;
- develop phenotypic tools based on turbidity/fluorescence measurements in microplates to characterise strains capable of forming biofilms and regrowing despite the use of biocides on surfaces in food production facilities;
- transfer these tools to technical centres serving the agri-food industry for easy, rapid and automated implementation.
Development of a rapid molecular tool to identify Salmonella diarizonae from sheep samples
Partners: IdentyPath platform (Laboratory for Food Safety, ANSES), ACTALIA
Funding: Roquefort General Confederation
As part of the Actia Fastypers UMT, the DiffDiarizonae project aims to provide field operators with a molecular test for the rapid and specific identification of Salmonella enterica diarizonae strains.
Heavy metals and antimicrobial resistance in Salmonella in the French swine sector: from livestock farming to human infections
Partners: INRAE (ISP unit, Tours site)
Funding: ANSES, INRAE
This thesis aims to study heavy metal resistance in Salmonella strains isolated from the French swine sector between 2014 and 2024.
The main objectives are as follows:
- Study the genomic diversity of Salmonella strains in order to characterise their antimicrobial and heavy metal resistance profiles and analyse their mobilome (all mobile genetic elements, including prophages, plasmids, transposons, etc.);
- Use a phenotypic approach to confirm the resistance profiles predicted by genomic analysis;
- Investigate phenomena of co-resistance to metals and antibiotics, as well as the factors involved in the spread of this resistance.
Impact of exposure to triamines on the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in Listeria monocytogenes
Partners: AB2R unit (ANSES Fougères Laboratory), Prométhée platform (Fougères Laboratory), ProCeD team (Institut Micalis, INRAE)
Funding: National Research Programme for Environmental and Occupational Health (PNR EST)
This project follows on from several collaborative projects conducted by the SEL unit and the AB2R unit of ANSES’s Fougères Laboratory. It seeks to better understand how exposure to triamines can induce or select for cross-resistance with antibiotics, thereby increasing the risk of spread of resistant Listeria monocytogenes strains and the potential health impacts.
The project is promoting synergies in the various skills of the Agency and its partners using several innovative approaches, including experimental evolution, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, membrane analysis and microscopy, to provide a comprehensive understanding of cross-resistance.
Partners: Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), National Research and Development Institute for Food Bioresources (IBA, Romania), National Marine Fisheries Research Institute (MIR-PIB, Poland), Teagasc Food Research Centre (Ireland) and SINTEF Ocean Research Institute (Norway)
Funding: European Union Joint Programming Initiative "A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life"
The Up4Food project aims to upcycle food by-products that are not usually consumed by humans. It covers three categories of food: herring, potatoes and residues from the extraction of rapeseed, sunflower and sea-buckthorn oils. The partners are developing new methods to extract ingredients from these by-products, testing how they can be incorporated into food, and analysing their chemical composition and their nutritional and taste qualities. Lastly, they are assessing their acceptability among manufacturers and the general public. As part of this project, ANSES is carrying out chemical analyses of the by-products and extracted ingredients, from both a toxicological and nutritional perspective.
Towards a better understanding of the impact of food cooking on the fate of inorganic contaminants and their species
PhD project
Partner: Technical University of Denmark – Food
The Cook-In project aims to contribute to a better understanding of the impact of different food cooking methods – such as boiling, deep-frying, pan-frying and oven-baking – on the fate of potentially toxic trace elements (lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, chromium, aluminium, antimony, manganese, cobalt and nickel), as well as on the speciation analysis of arsenic and mercury (in both cases, inorganic and organic species will be studied).
In order to accurately assess the impact of cooking on the benefit-risk balance, the project will also study changes in the levels of the most important nutrients (phosphorus, sulphur, iodine, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, selenium, iron, molybdenum, copper and zinc), as well as total protein, fat and omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.