Predictive Microgiology: a valuable tool in food safety and microbiological risk assessment

Abstract

Foodborne pathogens represent a major concern for the food industry, which needs to ensure that products are safe for consumers. Predictive microbiology is a multidisciplinary area of food mi crobiology, which is devoted to studying and predicting, by means of mathematical models, the cffects of extrinsic factors (temperature, salt, preservatives, etc.) on microbial behaviour in foods. The present chapter is an overview of the successive steps to follow for the successful development and implementation of a predictive model, as well as the most common types of secondary mod­els used in food microbiology. The chapter continues with a general review of the most powerful predictive microbiological tools (tertiary models) that are currently available on the worldwide web for foodborne patho­gens, and concludes by commenting on the direct implications and applications of predictive microbiology in food safety and microbial risk assessments.