Food reformulations for improved health: A potential risk for microbial food safety?

While much information is available concerning the health promoting benefits associated with dietary reformulations (e.g. replacing sugar with aspartame and salt (NaCl) with KCl), to reduce the incidence of obesity and heart disease, potential food safety risks arising from such reformulations have received considerably less attention. Reformulation inevitably changes the intrinsic physico-chemical properties of the food, which may in turn support the growth of food-borne pathogens and ultimately their ability to cause disease. Thus, a better understanding of the microbiological food safety issues associated with product reformulation for increased health are required.