USE OF PREDICTIVE MICROBIOLOGY IN MICROBIAL FOOD SAFETY RISK ASSESSMENT

Microbial risk assessment is a newly emerging discipline in the area o f food safety. One of the difficulties associated with microbial risk assessment is in determining the number of microorganisms in food at a given time, i.e., estimating exposure of an individual to the microor ganism. Numbers of bacteria in food can change at all stages of food p roduction and processing, depending on the nature of the food and the way it is handled, stored and processed. Predictive microbiology can b e used to estimate changes in bacterial numbers, allowing exposure of an individual to a pathogen to be assessed. A survey was sent to scien tists in the food industry to determine their perspective on the role of predictive microbiology in conducting microbial risk assessments. I n this paper, responses to that survey are presented, as well as examp les of the potential risk of foodborne illness from a cooked meat prod uct contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus and hamburger contaminated with Salmonella. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.