Search

Microbiological criteria provide the food industry and regulatory agencies with guidelines for control of food processing systems and are an underlying component of any critical control point that addresses a microbiological hazard in Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) systems. Aerobic plate count (APC) or standard plate count (SPC) is commonly used to determine “total” numbers of microorganisms in a food product. Depending on the pathogen, low levels of the microorganism in the food product may or may not be of concern. Some microorganisms have such a low infective dose that their mere presence in a food presents a significant public health risk. For such microbes, the concern is not whether the pathogen is able to grow in the food but that the microorganism could survive for any length of time in the food. Food products frequently subject to contamination by harmful microorganisms, such as shellfish, may benefit from the application of microbiological criteria. Enterococci counts have few useful applications in microbiological criteria for food safety. Some microbiological criteria related to safety rely on tests for metabolites to indicate a potential hazard rather than direct tests for pathogenic or indicator microorganisms. The current acceptable limits are based on the criterion that there is an 80% probability that the plant is actually exceeding the target value if it exceeds the acceptable limit.