The food industry supply chain in the light of COVID-19: the constraint and development of measures to ensure food safety and quality control

Abstract

The international borders opening led to goods and people migration with a significant change of consumer behavior, this favored new food-borne diseases uprising and outbreaks worldwide. Recently, the resurgence of COVID-19 has highlighted the limitations of the world-health surveillance measures and caused unprecedented effects on the food supply chain and the food industry. Amid this recent crisis, aroused population and scientific concerns and the demand for food safety and quality control improvement trough-out the food supply chain. To solve this constraint, it is primordial to understand food supply chain contamination stem and develop new, more sensitive, specific effective, and efficient point-of-care detection methods to segregate food items at an early pathogen contamination stage. 3D printing technology positioned itself as the solution because it enables the synergistic action of new molecular detection methods combined with the new 3D printing techniques for the production of high end-point biosensors capable of direct testing of food along the production line and the food supply chain. Because 3D printed biosensors are user and eco-friendly, convenient, fast, and take away the laboratory analysis constraints, 3D printed molecular biosensor devices are the new trend to enhance the food safety screening performances and guarantee food quality. We aimed to present how impactful COVID-19 was in the food industry and food supply chain across the globe and the adaptive measures that have been put in place to ensure consumer were provided with safe food with the usage of biosensors and 3D printed technology.