CRIFS connects advanced science, industry needs, and public health intelligence to build a safer, more resilient food system
Food safety is not a single laboratory test or checkpoint. It is a chain of decisions that extends from farms and processing facilities to laboratories, regulators, retailers and consumers. As food supply chains become more complex, the ability to detect hazards early, understand how they move and provide evidence for effective control has become essential to both public health and economic resilience.
The Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety (CRIFS) at the University of Guelph brings these capabilities together. The institute combines fundamental research with applied problem-solving, helping government, industry, and academic partners respond to immediate food safety challenges while developing the technologies and expertise needed for the future. Its mission is built around three connected priorities: advancing food safety science, training the next generation of highly qualified personnel, and creating collaborations that benefit industry and consumers.
Science built for real-world decisions
CRIFS is designed around the reality that food safety problems rarely fit neatly within one discipline. A contamination event may require microbiology to identify the organism, genomics to determine its relationships, data science to trace its movement, processing knowledge to understand how it survived, and risk assessment to guide the response. The institute therefore draws together expertise spanning food microbiology, molecular biology, dairy science, antimicrobial resistance, bioinformatics, toxicology, risk analysis, and One Health.
This multidisciplinary structure allows CRIFS to move from a scientific question to an operational answer. Researchers can investigate how pathogens persist in foods and processing environments, determine the genetic and physiological features that influence virulence or survival, and translate those findings into practical detection and control strategies. The same integrated approach supports research on food spoilage, fermentation, dairy quality, probiotics, ingredient functionality, and the microbial communities that shape the safety and performance of food products.
For food companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises that may not maintain extensive in-house research capacity, access to this breadth of expertise can be transformative. CRIFS provides scientific and technical support for process validation, regulatory compliance, shelf-life studies, pathogen-control troubleshooting, and food safety risk assessment. Projects are tailored to the client’s question and can combine recognised microbiological methods with advanced molecular tools when those tools provide additional speed, resolution, or insight.
Detecting hazards before they become crises
A central strength of CRIFS is its ability to see microbial hazards at a level that was not possible with conventional testing alone. Whole genome sequencing can distinguish closely related bacterial isolates and help identify links among food, environmental, and clinical samples. Metagenomics can analyse entire microbial communities, providing a broader view of the organisms and genes present in a food, water, or environmental sample.
Under the leadership of Professor Lawrence Goodridge, CRIFS is helping move these technologies from specialised research applications towards faster and more accessible diagnostics. Goodridge is a Canada Research Chair in Foodborne Pathogen Dynamics and a food microbiologist whose work focuses on the detection, characterisation, and control of foodborne pathogens. His research integrates molecular biology, genomics, bioinformatics, and microbiome science to improve the identification and tracking of bacterial contaminants across the food chain.
An important part of this work is the development of portable, field-deployable methods. Traditional food microbiology often depends on samples being transported to a central laboratory, followed by culture and confirmation steps that can take days. Portable molecular and sequencing systems create the possibility of analysing hazards closer to the point of need and producing actionable information while a problem can still be contained. The goal is not to replace every established method, but to provide food producers, public health teams, and regulators with a wider and more responsive diagnostic toolkit.
CRIFS also develops the computational approaches needed to interpret these increasingly large datasets. Sequencing produces information; bioinformatics converts that information into evidence. By linking microbial genomes with source, time, geography and processing conditions, researchers can identify patterns that support outbreak investigation, traceability, risk assessment, and targeted intervention.
From laboratory evidence to safer production
Advanced detection is most valuable when it leads to safer products and processes. CRIFS operates an integrated core facility that supports microbiology, molecular biology, genomics, metagenomics, bioinformatics, fermentation, and physiological simulation. Its Containment Level 2 capabilities allow researchers to work safely with foodborne pathogens under controlled conditions, while specialised processing resources make it possible to examine how organisms respond to conditions that reflect commercial production.
The institute’s fermentation laboratory, for example, can evaluate whether combinations of time, temperature, acidity, formulation, and processing conditions prevent the growth or survival of pathogens. An industrial smoker allows researchers to reproduce curing and smoking conditions used in meat processing. Molecular biology infrastructure supports nucleic-acid extraction, real-time PCR, digital PCR, and high-throughput workflows. Prototyping capability can also be used to design research devices for specialised sampling or testing needs.
CRIFS is strengthened by its connections to complementary University of Guelph facilities, including the Agriculture and Food Laboratory, the Animal Health Laboratory, and the Guelph Food Innovation Centre. Together, these resources create a pathway from microbial discovery and analytical testing to product development, process evaluation, and industry implementation. This connected environment is especially important for companies seeking to innovate without compromising safety, and for researchers who need to test whether an intervention remains effective outside a small laboratory experiment.
The institute’s work in dairy foods illustrates this broader systems approach. CRIFS researchers study microbial communities from farm to processing facility, examine biofilms and residual contamination, improve control of pathogens such as Listeria and Salmonella, and explore how fermentation organisms, probiotics, and ingredients affect quality and functionality. The result is research that supports safety, product performance, and sustainability at the same time.
A One Health view of antimicrobial resistance
Food safety is inseparable from the health of people, animals, and the environment. CRIFS applies a One Health perspective to understand how pathogens and antimicrobial-resistance genes move through these connected systems. Resistant bacteria may emerge in one setting and travel through animals, food, water, waste streams, or the wider environment. Effective surveillance must therefore look beyond any single sector.
CRIFS researchers are developing genomic and field-ready methods to detect and characterise antimicrobial resistance in food and environmental samples. This work can help identify emerging resistance patterns, improve understanding of transmission routes, and support more targeted stewardship and control measures. It also creates opportunities to link food safety surveillance with environmental and public health intelligence.
Wastewater surveillance demonstrates the value of this integrated approach. Goodridge co-leads the Guelph Wastewater Epidemiology Lab for Public Health, which has monitored respiratory viruses including SARS-CoV-2, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus. Wastewater provides a non-invasive, community-level signal that can reveal changes in pathogen circulation before those changes are fully visible through clinical testing. The same scientific foundation can be applied more broadly to foodborne pathogens, antimicrobial resistance, and other biological threats at the interface of human, animal, and environmental health.
Training and convening the food safety community
Infrastructure alone does not create a safer food system; people do. CRIFS trains students and professionals who will carry food safety science into industry, government, public health, and academia. Faculty members contribute to the University of Guelph’s Food Safety & Quality Assurance Masters programme, which combines science, regulation, risk analysis, management, and food law. CRIFS also supports interdisciplinary One Health training for graduate students.
For working professionals, the institute offers seminars and hands-on workshops that connect established microbiological practice with emerging tools such as rapid methods, metagenomics, and advanced data analysis. These programmes allow participants to work through realistic industry cases, compare approaches, and build the judgement needed to apply new technologies appropriately.
CRIFS also helps convene Canada’s food safety community. The Guelph Food Safety Seminars, established in 2004, bring together participants from academia, government, and industry to discuss timely issues in risk management, food quality, and public health. These relationships are central to the institute’s impact. Food safety advances more quickly when scientists understand operational constraints, regulators can engage with emerging evidence, and companies can help define the questions that research needs to answer.
Leadership that connects science and society
Goodridge’s role as director reflects the breadth of CRIFS itself. His research programme spans foodborne bacterial pathogens, genomic epidemiology, rapid diagnostics, microbial ecology, antimicrobial resistance, and wastewater surveillance. Across these areas, a consistent principle is that advanced science should lead to decisions that are faster, more precise, and more useful.
His leadership also extends to public communication and the development of inclusive scientific communities. Goodridge regularly contributes scientific context during foodborne outbreaks and emerging public health events, helping translate complex evidence for broader audiences. His contributions to diversity in food safety were recognised with the International Association for Food Protection’s 2025 James M. Jay Diversity in Food Safety Award. This commitment to widening participation complements CRIFS’s responsibility to develop the next generation of researchers and professionals.
Building a more resilient food future
The next phase of food safety will depend on integration. Genomics must connect to epidemiology. Diagnostics must connect to production decisions. Laboratory findings must be tested under realistic processing conditions. Regulatory evidence must be generated in forms that companies and public agencies can use. Training must keep pace with the technologies entering laboratories and food plants.
CRIFS is positioning itself to serve as that connecting platform. Its future direction includes expanded industry-accessible capacity for pathogen-capable process validation, shelf-life studies, intervention testing, advanced analytical support, and regulator-ready evidence generation. By linking these services with research, pilot-scale processing, data science and workforce development, the institute can help shorten the path from discovery to adoption.
For industry, this means access to independent scientific expertise and infrastructure that can reduce uncertainty during product and process development. For government and public health partners, it means stronger surveillance, better evidence, and a research community able to respond to emerging risks. For students, it means training in an environment where fundamental science and real-world application are inseparable.
The Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety is ultimately built around a simple objective: ensuring that scientific innovation produces safer food and better public health outcomes. By combining advanced research, industry collaboration, training and One Health surveillance, CRIFS is helping Canada anticipate hazards rather than merely react to them – and is building the knowledge, tools, and partnerships needed for a more resilient global food system.
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