The Range of Microbial Risks in Food Processing

Foodborne illnesses can be caused by a wide range of microorganisms. Data analysis can help to determine which microorganisms give the highest contribution to the number of foodborne illnesses. This helps to decide which pathogen(s) to focus on in order to reduce the number of illnesses. The same accounts for the products that are related to foodborne illnesses. Quantitative microbiology can be used in assessing food safety in a farm-to-fork approach. Evaluating the estimated effect of various control strategies can help to decide which combination of strategies in the chain is most effective and efficient to achieve a certain food safety objective. The potential of data analysis and quantitative microbiology is clear, yet more work needs to be done to incorporate recontamination in predictive models. The models available at the moment, although simple, can already be applied to determine the importance of (re)contamination compared with growth and inactivation of pathogen