SinderenThe food industry is under increasing pressure to produce highquality, traceable and minimally processed foods that areproduced using sustainable approaches and ingredients. In linewith the latter, there is an increased pressure for plant-basedproducts to replace animal-derived products. Until recently,research efforts have mainly focused on dairy and meatproducts owing to their economic importance. The shifttowards plant-based diets and food production requires acorresponding shift in research efforts to define the microbialrequirements for and composition of (novel) plant-based foods,the (micro)organisms that are beneficial to such productionsystems, and the abundance and role of (bacterio)phages inshaping the microbial landscape of these foods. In this review,we explore current efforts in the area of virome analysis of foodsand food production environments and highlight the need formore unified approaches to understand the contribution ofphages in food safety and quality, and to develop novel tools toenhance the traceability of foods.
