Professor Marcel Zwietering wins European award for food safety

The prize recognises professionals who have made outstanding contributions to food safety in Europe. Zwietering is only the second recipient of the Europe Food Safety Award and is delighted with the recognition. “It’s a great honour to be named the winner,” he says.

Symbiosis

Zwietering is known in his field as a scientist with a broad perspective and a collaborative approach. He sees cooperation as essential – whether with fellow researchers, industry partners, policymakers or students. “In microbiology, we think in terms of symbiosis: together you are stronger. Staying on your own little island just does not work.” According to the professor, without interaction, your perspective becomes too narrow. “By exchanging ideas with different stakeholders, you develop a broader vision and therefore better solutions.”

In his research, Zwietering developed a mathematical model that predicts bacterial growth under various conditions, such as temperature, pH or storage method. He called it the gamma model. “This method for calculating bacterial growth has become widely known and has since been further developed by other researchers,” says Zwietering. Nowadays, governments and industry also apply it, for example in shelf-life testing, where it supports the process of determining expiry dates. “You can compare it to a spell checker,” the professor says. “It doesn’t write the story for you, but it supports the process.”

His work thus helps companies maintain high food safety standards. “I do not see working with industry as a conflict of interest, but as mutual enrichment,” Zwietering says. Because companies have practical knowledge, they know exactly where the needs lie. “As scientists, we can learn a great deal from them – and they from us. Ultimately, we all share responsibility. Science, government, industry and consumers together ensure that our food is as safe as possible.”

Hygiene as a foundation

In addition to his scientific work, Zwietering is or has been active in numerous national and international advisory bodies, including the Dutch Health Council and the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Food. In the latter, he makes it his mission to improve the food safety culture worldwide. “Nowadays we have all kinds of criteria that define what safe food is,” he says. “But end-product testing alone does not make food safe. It is good process design and proper routines that matter. It may sound simple, but hygiene and good storage are what really make the difference.”

“In developing countries, people sometimes say: we do not have access to advanced techniques like genomics, so we cannot organise food safety. But that is an illusion. Good hygiene, washing your hands, thoughtful process design – those things already make a huge difference. You do not always need DNA analysis to find out where things go wrong.”

The Europe Food Safety Award

The Europe Food Safety Award is presented annually by the International Association for Food Protection. It recognises researchers who have made exceptional contributions to improving food safety in Europe, both within and beyond academia. The winner receives a medal and a cash prize of €2,500.