Modeling Microbial Cross-contamination in Quick Service Restaurants by Means of Experimental Simulations With Bacillus Spores

Cross contamination has been frequently mentioned as being in the origin of a wide range of food borne outbreaks. Handling of food is one of the ways through which cross contamination may occur. For many different reasons, quick service restaurants are particularly at risk. Due to its importance, cross contamination via the hands should be taken into consideration when carrying out a quantitative risk assessment. The main goal of this study was to determine transfer rates of bacteria to and via the hands, reduction rates of two hand sanitizing procedures and to apply the results to a quantitative microbial risk assessment model. According to our results, handling of a portion of raw minced meat contaminated at 4.104 cfu leads to the presence of 24 cfu on both hands, 3 cfu on ready-to-eat product (RTE) manipulated with unwashed hands, 1 cfu on RTE manipulated with wiped hands and absence on RTE manipulated with washed hands. This study provides adequate quantitative data for quantitative microbial risk assessment