Bacteriophages are viruses that attack bacteria killing them. They are inanimate and can be considered dead till they infect the bacteria where they multiply. Phages were approved by the FDA in 2006 for their application in food to control Listeria infections.
Link to paper: https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085%2806%2902235-9/fulltext
This has continued for sometime, since multiple strains can be used to control Listeria without them developing resistance and they are not harmful to humans due to their specificity for the bacterial strain. Though the use of bacteriophage for controlling bacteria are use in plant applications and agriculture their use in human in restricted.
There may be many reasons. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6517696/. The prime among them is the challenge of preparing a standardized formulations but also the risk of immunogenity and transfer of antibiotic resistance genes among the bateria.
A new method using microneedles has been developed to be used for preparing raw foods or packaging raw foods that incorporate the viruses into the microneedles themselves as they are made. This enables the bacteriophage to penetrate into the tissue of meat or vegetable products and hence causes lysis of that bacteria.
Very novel!
