Citation: Paparella, A.; Purgatorio, C.; Chaves-López, C.; Rossi, C.; Serio, A. The Multifaceted Relationship between the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Food System. Foods 2022, 11, 2816. https:// doi.org/10.3390/foods11182816 Academic Editor: Haiying Cui Received: 6 July 2022 Accepted: 7 September 2022 Published: 13 September 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). foods Review The Multifaceted Relationship between the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Food System Antonello Paparella * , Chiara Purgatorio, Clemencia Chaves-López , Chiara Rossi and Annalisa Serio Faculty of Bioscience and Technology for Food, Agriculture and Environment, University of Teramo, 64100 Teramo, Italy * Correspondence: apaparella@unite.it Abstract: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is being questioned for its possible food transmission, due to several reports of the virus on food, outbreaks developed in food companies, as well as its origins linked to the wet market of Wuhan, China. The purpose of this review is to analyze the scientific evidence gathered so far on the relationship between food and the pandemic, considering all aspects of the food system that can be involved. The collected data indicate that there is no evidence that foods represent a risk for the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. In fact, even if the virus can persist on food surfaces, there are currently no proven cases of infection from food. Moreover, the pandemic showed to have deeply influenced the eating habits of consumers and their purchasing methods, but also to have enhanced food waste and poverty. Another important finding is the role of meat processing plants as suitable environments for the onset of outbreaks. Lessons learned from the pandemic include the correct management of spaces, food hygiene education for both food workers and common people, the enhancement of alternative commercial channels, the reorganization of food activities, in particular wet markets, and intensive farming, following correct hygiene practices. All these outcomes lead to another crucial lesson, which is the importance of the resilience of the food system. These lessons should be assimilated to deal with the present pandemic and possible future emergencies. Future research directions include further investigation of the factors linked to the food system that can favor the emergence of viruses, and of innovative technologies that can reduce viral transmission. Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; food transmission; food safety; persistence; food system 1. Introduction COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by a new type of coronavirus, the SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2). Coronaviridae is a large family of enveloped, positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses that includes many strains [1]. However, the provisionally called 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), now known as SARS-CoV-2, was first reported to infect humans in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, in December 2019 [2,3]. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020 [4,5]. Although the exact origin of the virus is still unknown, the most likely natural hosts of SARS-CoV-2 are bats, because of the high homology in their nucleotide sequence (96%) at the whole genome level [6,7]. However, it is believed that the virus jumped from species to species, passing to other domestic or wild animals, and finally to humans [8], with pangolin as a probable intermediate host [9]. The periodic appearance of coronaviruses in humans is very likely, especially in situations where people and animals are in close contact [10]. In fact, time after time, the invasion of the animal habitat by humans determined the appearance of zoonoses [11]. In this context, an important role might have been played by the food system. In fact, many factors, such as direct or indirect contact with animals, especially wild species, or Foods 2022, 11, 2816. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods11182816 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/foods