Food safety and quality in wild game meat supply chain CALL 2024

Animal diseases have always been a threat to public health in terms of animal health, food safety, the environment, and the national economy. Among those, African swine fever (ASF) now in Italy is one of the main health emergencies. ASF virus affects wild boar and domestic pigs and to date, there are no effective treatments (i.e. vaccines). In this regard, control strategies have been implemented by national and European Institutions on the topic such as disease surveillance, hunting, wild boar carcass searches, and ASF barrier implementation. Part of these strategies includes selective hunting or trapping, and the subsequent transfer of the carcasses to the stopover site -waiting for the health passport: ASF-free- and then processing, to destine ASF-free wild game meat for human consumption. The research project will be developed in this context. Firstly, through inspection, the food safety and hygienic quality of carcasses will be assessed. Secondly, aspects such as shelf-life evaluation will be investigated by testing different types of active packaging.

Five publications related to the Research Topic for the candidate interview: 

  1. Sauter-Louis, C., Conraths, F.J., Probst, C., Blohm, U., Schulz, K., Sehl, J., Fischer, M., Forth, J.H., Zani, L., Depner, K. and Mettenleiter, T.C., 2021. African swine fever in wild boar in Europe—a review. Viruses, 13(9), p.1717.
  2. Andrade, M.A., Barbosa, C.H., Santos, R.R., Vilarinho, F., Silva, A.S. and Ramos, F., 2022. Application of Releasing Systems in Active Packaging of Meat Products. In Releasing Systems in Active Food Packaging: Preparation and Applications (pp. 303-352). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
  3. Boers, R.H., Dijkmann, K.E. and Wijngaards, G., 1994. Shelf-life of vacuum-packaged wild boar meat in relation to that of vacuum-packaged pork: relevance of intrinsic factors. Meat science, 37(1), pp.91-102.
  4. Kasałka‐Czarna, N., Bilska, A., Biegańska‐Marecik, R. and Montowska, M., 2022. The effect of storage method on selected physicochemical and microbiological qualities of wild boar meat. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 102(12), pp.5250-5260.
  5. Sauvala, M., Johansson, P., Björkroth, J. and Fredriksson-Ahomaa, M., 2023. Microbiological quality and safety of vacuum-packaged white-tailed deer meat stored at 4° C. International Journal of Food Microbiology, 390, p.110110.

Contact person

Dr. Marta Castrica

Department of Comparative biomedicine and food science (https://www.bca.unipd.it/)
University of Padova
tel.: +39-3496352212
e-mail: marta.castrica@unipd.it