Research - Food Safety | NC State Extension

We strive to make sure all of the information we provide is based on scientific research. Much of this research comes from our studies conducted in the Dinah E. Gore Teaching and Research Kitchens here on campus, but also at Extension Centers throughout North Carolina and partner institutions in other states such as California, Texas, and Rhode Island. Our research projects have included observational and microbial studies, focus groups, surveys, interviews, risk modeling, and eye-tracking devices.

Recent Safe Plates Research

Two new Safe Plates publications are out in Food Protection Trends. Here’s a quick look at each:

Forcemeat Factoid (Sept/Oct 2026)
This peer-reviewed article (Vol. 46, No. 5, pp. 547–556; doi: 10.4315/FPT-25-043) is based on two focus groups, one with chefs and one with culinary instructors, that explored how they perceive forcemeat risks and how they handle and teach these products. Both groups flagged temperature control and spoilage detection, and chefs said they often pull products early and rely on carryover cooking, which points to a need for short, tailored training materials for younger cooks.
Inside the Pies (July/Aug 2026)
This paper (Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 388–402; doi: 10.4315/FPT-25-024) reports a survey of 658 consumers, which found that 56% never use a food thermometer on meat pies and 16% weren’t sure whether their purchase was ready-to-eat. Testing 270 retail samples turned up Listeria monocytogenes in six and no Salmonella, supporting clearer RTE vs. NRTE labeling and explicit thermometer instructions.

The Safe Plates research team also worked with industry and nonprofit partners to test practices and tools in realistic settings, from a university dining hall to a commercial refrigerator, so the findings can be put to use. A bit about our recent projects:

Sanitizing in dining halls
We’ve completed the first two phases of a study comparing traditional cloth-and-bucket sanitizing to disposable wipes in an NC State dining hall, with a full report still to come. Early findings suggest the biggest opportunities lie in how staff use the tools day to day.
Recall message design
In partnership with Stop Foodborne Illness, we used eye-tracking and a test kitchen task with 59 adults to see how recall notice design affects behavior. Participants who saw a redesigned two-column template avoided the mock-recalled product 85% of the time, compared with 47% for an FDA-style control.
Avoiding alarm fatigue
With Testo Solutions and Rutgers University, we found that cooler air temperature rises well ahead of actual product temperature during outages and open-door events. The results support basing alerts on simulated product temperature and delaying ambient alerts by two or more hours.

Fact Sheets