Food Protection trends published "Whole Genome Sequencing for Food Safety: Opportunities, Benefits and Challenges" (Wiedmann, and Neumann, Food Protection Trends 2026, vol46, issue 1 pages 8-32, it reports that Whole genome sequencing (WGS) is increasingly used by public health and regulatory agencies to detect foodborne disease outbreaks, identify outbreak sources, and, less commonly, to assess food industry's regulatory compliance status. The WGS application appears to be most prevalent in the US, Canada, many parts of Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, compared to other countries, particularly low- and middle-income countries. The use of WGS by the food industry is more limited and typically focuses on very specific applications where benefits have been determined to outweigh potential risks, including regulatory, legal, and reputational risks associated with the use and sharing of WGS data and with the attribution of WGS data to a specific firm. Broader industry adoption is further hampered by hurdles such as a lack of trained personnel to properly interpret WGS findings and/or the ability to put those findings into the context of enterprise risk. Ultimately, global public health will benefit from the use of WGS and the sharing of normalized and standardized data, provided that (i) the risks to the private sector can be appropriately and reasonably identified and mitigated, and that (ii) global WGS infrastructure is enhanced and further harmonized. @ https://www.foodprotection.org/publications/food-protection-trends/archive/2026-01-whole-genome-sequencing-for-food-safety-opportunities-benefits-and-challenges/#:~:text=Whole%20Genome%20Sequencing%20for%20Food%20Safety%3A%20Opportunities%2C%20Benefits%20and%20Challenges,-Home&text=Whole%20genome%20sequencing%20(WGS)%20is,food%20industry's%20regulatory%20compliance%20status
