I. Walls et Vn. Scott, USE OF PREDICTIVE MICROBIOLOGY IN MICROBIAL FOOD SAFETY RISK ASSESSMENT, International journal of food microbiology, 36(2-3), 1997, pp. 97-102
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.