Lebensmittelmikrobiologie und -hygiene - Archiv

The Food Microbiology and Hygiene Section of the VAAM and DGHM, which merged in 2015, organised the "Food Microbiology and Food Hygiene" mini-symposium at the joint annual conference of the two societies in Würzburg at the beginning of March. The keynote speaker was Hendrik Wilking from the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, who gave an exciting overview of the epidemiology of listeriosis in Germany in recent years. Of the posters presented at the mini-symposium, Genia Lücking's (Technical University of Munich) contribution received one of the ten conference poster prizes.

The 17th "Food Microbiology" symposium took place shortly afterwards at the beginning of April at the Sparkassenakademie in Landshut. A total of 110 participants from science, food monitoring and industry attended to discuss various aspects of food microbiology in a wide-ranging programme. The keynote speaker was Ulrich Busch from the Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety in Oberschleissheim. In an exciting and entertaining presentation, he reported on the clarification of an outbreak of listeriosis in southern Germany that lasted for years. Other key topics included pathogenic microorganisms, detection and inactivation of viruses/bacteriophages in food, starter cultures and microbiology of sausage products, microbiology of milk powder and aspects of food hygiene.

The three best posters out of 25 exhibited were honoured with prizes. Thorsten Bufe (University of Hohenheim) took first place, followed by Livia Schwendimann (Agroscope, Bern) and Danai Etter (Agroscope, Wädenswil) in second and third place. Seven sponsors supported the symposium with an interesting industrial exhibition.