Predictive Microbiology as a HACCP Validation and Support Tool-Saturday, July 7
How severe is this cooling deviation? How long does it take for pathogens to grow at low temperatures such as 50°F? What can the HACCP team do to justify the rationale behind chosen critical limits? Does my heat treatment provide sufficient lethality? What are the boundaries for microbial growth that I can use for product formulation? Increasingly, both regulatory agencies and food industry scientists and managers are placing a renewed emphasis on HACCP validation for important pathogens such as C. perfringens, B. cereus, S. aureus, Salmonella, and L. monocytogenes, just to name a few. This workshop will serve as an introduction to the practical application of predictive microbiology as a tool to help answer such questions. Scientific and regulatory perspective on using predictive microbiology will be presented, along with an overview and demonstration of growth, survival and inactivation models in programs such as the Pathogen Modeling Program, ComBase Growth Predictor, and the Integrated Lethality Spreadsheet. Half a dozen case studies will be presented and discussed, including a hands-on working group exercise to illustrate the use (and how to avoid misuse) of various models to address real life problems.
Topics:
• Scientific Perspective on Predictive Microbiology and Its Relationship
to HACCP Validation
• Fundamentals of Predictive Microbiology
• Overview and Demonstration of Software Tools
• Regulatory Perspective of FSIS and FDA on the Use of Predictive
Microbiology
• Case Study and Working Group Exercises
Instructors:
Richard Whiting, Food and Drug Administration, College Park, MD, USA
Donald Schaffner, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
Yuhuan Chen, GMA/FPA, Washington, D.C., USA
Jenny Scott, GMA/FPA, Washington, D.C., USA
Organizers:
Yuhuan Chen, GMA/FPA, Washington, D.C., USA
Donald Schaffner, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
