The U.S. Food & Drug Administration has announced several recent food recalls, including one affecting more than a million cage-free, certified organic eggs linked to a multistate salmonella outbreak.
University of Virginia engineering professor Bryan Berger has been researching chemical contaminants in food and how to reduce them for years. In 2022, he founded a company that works to create alternatives to antimicrobials used in farming.
He spoke with UVA about how chemical pesticides and antimicrobials increase the risk of foodborne illnesses and how he hopes to change that.
What are some of the issues chemicals used in our foods can create?
A lot of the things we’ve been hearing about in the news recently have to do with food additives, preservatives and chemicals used in food preservation and food processing. They have negative health impacts on people directly, just because they accumulate in food.
Another issue is the increasing resistance of foodborne pathogens to these chemicals. It’s kind of a vicious cycle where you just keep applying more and more and more to make the problem go away. In doing so, you just create more resistant pathogens and increase the chemicals themselves in the food. And we eat them.
A big part of our company’s work is working hand-in-hand with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the food industry. We have some joint patents with the USDA to explore all-natural replacements for antimicrobials and chemicals that are used in food. Right now, we’re going after listeria, salmonella and E. coli, which are some of the biggest foodborne pathogens you hear about.
What are you paying attention to as an expert?
There was recently a huge salmonella recall on eggs; 1.7 million crates of eggs were recalled due to salmonella contamination. I would say, in the past year or two, there’s been a significant uptick in the number of recalls of food due to foodborne illness and contamination.
So, what I keep an eye on is just the increasing frequency with which it happens. And then, that informs a lot of the work that we do that’s led to working with companies to do testing. It’s led to working closer with the USDA.
We’re doing a ton of work, most recently on poultry farms, looking at campylobacter, which is another major foodborne pathogen that is pretty unique to poultry. I think poultry is a huge area of need and opportunity, especially because the Shenandoah Valley has such a huge concentration of poultry farms and a lot of regenerative farmers who are trying to produce food organically or sustainably.
UVA Today wrote a story about your company, Lytos, in 2022. What has changed since then?
So, we started five years ago and worked to eliminate antimicrobials in food and reduce antimicrobial resistance. Since the last time we spoke, we’ve moved to Waynesboro and hired a CEO and executive team.
We’re currently building a manufacturing facility and have raised the capital to start. It’s kind of cool to see the location in Waynesboro becoming a bit of a regional food hub, with us being a part of it.
A big part of what we’re doing is not just making solutions to get rid of these problems, but also empowering regenerative agriculture, because that is, I think, the only way we’re going to get out of this vicious cycle of using more chemicals. That’s how we keep having more frequent and severe outbreaks.
What advice do you have for consumers looking to eat safe food?
We look a lot for groups that follow regenerative agriculture practices. More and more now there are labels that you can find for regenerative agriculture, which means foods are minimally processed. The more processing that goes into the food, the more likely it is that there are chemicals and preservatives, all of which can increase the risk of foodborne illness.
People who can should consider going out to farms to try and buy directly from farmers. That’s the nice thing about living here in the Shenandoah Valley. We’re right next door to tons of regenerative farmers. Buying directly also helps communities, too, and helps support local farmers, which is also really important as well.
Citation:
Expert links chemical pesticides to increased foodborne illness risk (2025, July 8)
retrieved 8 July 2025
from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-07-expert-links-chemical-pesticides-foodborne.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
The U.S. Food & Drug Administration has announced several recent food recalls, including one affecting more than a million cage-free, certified organic eggs linked to a multistate salmonella outbreak.
University of Virginia engineering professor Bryan Berger has been researching chemical contaminants in food and how to reduce them for years. In 2022, he founded a company that works to create alternatives to antimicrobials used in farming.
He spoke with UVA about how chemical pesticides and antimicrobials increase the risk of foodborne illnesses and how he hopes to change that.
What are some of the issues chemicals used in our foods can create?
A lot of the things we’ve been hearing about in the news recently have to do with food additives, preservatives and chemicals used in food preservation and food processing. They have negative health impacts on people directly, just because they accumulate in food.
Another issue is the increasing resistance of foodborne pathogens to these chemicals. It’s kind of a vicious cycle where you just keep applying more and more and more to make the problem go away. In doing so, you just create more resistant pathogens and increase the chemicals themselves in the food. And we eat them.
A big part of our company’s work is working hand-in-hand with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the food industry. We have some joint patents with the USDA to explore all-natural replacements for antimicrobials and chemicals that are used in food. Right now, we’re going after listeria, salmonella and E. coli, which are some of the biggest foodborne pathogens you hear about.
What are you paying attention to as an expert?
There was recently a huge salmonella recall on eggs; 1.7 million crates of eggs were recalled due to salmonella contamination. I would say, in the past year or two, there’s been a significant uptick in the number of recalls of food due to foodborne illness and contamination.
So, what I keep an eye on is just the increasing frequency with which it happens. And then, that informs a lot of the work that we do that’s led to working with companies to do testing. It’s led to working closer with the USDA.
We’re doing a ton of work, most recently on poultry farms, looking at campylobacter, which is another major foodborne pathogen that is pretty unique to poultry. I think poultry is a huge area of need and opportunity, especially because the Shenandoah Valley has such a huge concentration of poultry farms and a lot of regenerative farmers who are trying to produce food organically or sustainably.
UVA Today wrote a story about your company, Lytos, in 2022. What has changed since then?
So, we started five years ago and worked to eliminate antimicrobials in food and reduce antimicrobial resistance. Since the last time we spoke, we’ve moved to Waynesboro and hired a CEO and executive team.
We’re currently building a manufacturing facility and have raised the capital to start. It’s kind of cool to see the location in Waynesboro becoming a bit of a regional food hub, with us being a part of it.
A big part of what we’re doing is not just making solutions to get rid of these problems, but also empowering regenerative agriculture, because that is, I think, the only way we’re going to get out of this vicious cycle of using more chemicals. That’s how we keep having more frequent and severe outbreaks.
What advice do you have for consumers looking to eat safe food?
We look a lot for groups that follow regenerative agriculture practices. More and more now there are labels that you can find for regenerative agriculture, which means foods are minimally processed. The more processing that goes into the food, the more likely it is that there are chemicals and preservatives, all of which can increase the risk of foodborne illness.
People who can should consider going out to farms to try and buy directly from farmers. That’s the nice thing about living here in the Shenandoah Valley. We’re right next door to tons of regenerative farmers. Buying directly also helps communities, too, and helps support local farmers, which is also really important as well.
Citation:
Expert links chemical pesticides to increased foodborne illness risk (2025, July 8)
retrieved 8 July 2025
from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-07-expert-links-chemical-pesticides-foodborne.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
