USE OF TIME/TEMPERATURE INTEGRATORS, PREDICTIVE MICROBIOLOGY, AND RELATED TECHNOLOGIES FOR ASSESSING THE EXTENT AND IMPACT OF TEMPERATURE ABUSE ON MEAT AND POULTRY PRODUCTS

Temperature abuse is a main concern for chilled and/or MAP meat and poultry products since it will not only cause economic loss, but may also lead to a foodborne illness hazard. A major question for such products is whether organoleptic spoilage due to microbial or chemical action will occur before pathogen numbers or toxin levels become a risk when a product undergoes abuse temperatures. Time-temperature integrators (TTI) have shown potential to indicate or estimate temperature abuse. However knowledge of predictive food microbiology is needed for each food to employ a TTI tag. The simple Monod and the nonlinear Gompertz function can be used to obtain growth parameters (i.e., lag time, exponential growth rate) from kinetic studies of microbial spoilage. The temperature dependence of these parameters is best evaluated by the Arrhenius or the square root model. Effects of temperature on other deteriorative processes can also be described similarly. Three approaches are presented to evaluate the extent and impact of temperature abuse on meat and poultry by use of TTI tags, which include the effective temperature, the equivalent time and the equivalent point approach. Other technologies to evaluate or to reduce the impact of temperature abuse are also discussed.