The Inclusion of the Food Microstructural Influence in Predictive Microbiology: State-of-the-Art

Davy Verheyen; Jan F M Van Impe

doi:10.3390/foods10092119

The Inclusion of the Food Microstructural Influence in Predictive Microbiology: State-of-the-Art

Foods. 2021 Sep 8;10(9):2119. doi: 10.3390/foods10092119.

Authors

Davy Verheyen^{1

2

3}, Jan F M Van Impe^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ BioTeC+, Chemical and Biochemical Process Technology and Control, Department of Chemical Engineering, KU Leuven, Gebroeders de Smetstraat 1, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
² OPTEC, Optimization in Engineering Center-of-Excellence, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
³ CPMF2, Flemish Cluster Predictive Microbiology in Foods-www.cpmf2.be, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.

Abstract

Predictive microbiology has steadily evolved into one of the most important tools to assess and control the microbiological safety of food products. Predictive models were traditionally developed based on experiments in liquid laboratory media, meaning that food microstructural effects were not represented in these models. Since food microstructure is known to exert a significant effect on microbial growth and inactivation dynamics, the applicability of predictive models is limited if food microstructure is not taken into account. Over the last 10-20 years, researchers, therefore, developed a variety of models that do include certain food microstructural influences. This review provides an overview of the most notable microstructure-including models which were developed over the years, both for microbial growth and inactivation.

Keywords: food microstructure; food safety; mathematical models; predictive microbiology.

Publication types

Review

Abstract

Publication types

Grants and funding