The role of food compounds and emerging technologies on phage stability

Abstract The growing demand for natural and minimally processed products, is influencing the use of natural antimicrobials such as bacteriophages. However, their application has presented some challenges regarding to their stability into the food. This has forced the food industry to look for alternatives. One possible alternative has been the combination of bacteriophages with emerging technologies, which offers a synergistic effect for bacterial reduction. Either alone or in combination with other technologies, bacteriophages have had a variable response in each food. A detailed knowledge regarding the influence of food and emerging technologies on phage stability is not available yet. This review will give an overview over the effect of both the emerging technologies itself and the impact of food matrix on phage stability, also it will discuss on the possible mechanisms by which bacteriophages are not stable in food systems.