An Investigation into the Safety and Shelf-Life of a Selection of Fermented Foods

This thesis investigates the growth and survival of key foodborne bacterial pathogens—Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella enterica serovar Senftenberg (as a representative of heat-resistant coliforms), and spores of Clostridium spp.—during the production and storage of fermented foods (kefir and sauerkraut). It also establishes microbial community profiles of these fermented foods by investigating the abundances of bacteria (and in the case of kefir - also fungi) present through nanopore sequencing.