In future, food authorities worldwide get another tool which can support them in decisions about food safety. So-called risk-based microbiological criteria have been developed on the basis of Danish research. Internationally, a shift from ordinary sample checking to this kind of tool may, in future, increase food safety and contribute to reducing the significant disease burden from microorganisms in food.
The Danish authorities intensively check for the presence of campylobacter and salmonella in Danish and foreign meat. When the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration find campylobacter or salmonella in a lot of meat they ask the National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark, to provide a scientific risk assessment. Based on this risk assessment it is decided from lot to lot whether the lot in question is acceptable for human consumption. This is called case-by-case checking.
In most other countries, authorities undertake ordinary sample checking, which doesn’t provide as precise a picture of the risk as case-by-case checking. At present, to increase food safety, international discussions take place about the use of new practical tools, the so-called risk-based microbiological criteria for assessing food safety. When microbiological criteria are risk-based, this means that you can combine microbiological data directly with the number of people expected to get ill.
Same effect as case-by-case checking
The National Food Institute has led a Nordic working group which has investigated the potential to define risk-based microbiological criteria for campylobacter in chicken meat. In their study, researchers examine the potential effect which specific microbiological criteria will have in different Nordic countries and compare them case by case.
The results indicate that the two tools that are currently available provide the same assessment of risks. The use of either case-by-case checking or microbiological criteria may result in a significant reduction of human cases of infections with campylobacter from chicken meat, the study shows. Thus, case-by-case checking and microbiological criteria are two different tools which can be used to attain the same reduction in risk. Internationally, implementation of this kind of tool may mean improved food safety compared to the present use of sample checking.
Furthermore, the study confirms that the risk of getting ill from campylobacter in chicken meat produced in the Nordic countries is low compared to chicken meat from most other European countries. The National Food Institute is in the process of developing software to facilitate the use of these two tools.
Read more
See the report: Establishment of Risk based microbiological criteria in the Nordic countries: A case study on Campylobacter in chicken meat (pdf).
Find more information on case-by-case checking on the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration’s website (in Danish).
The project is supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Working Group for Microbiology & Animal Health and Welfare. National Food Agency in Sweden, Mátis from Iceland (government-owned, independent research company), Norwegian Veterinary Institute, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Finland and Evira (Finnish Food Safety Authority) participated in the Nordic working group behind the study.