Reference for baking (brownies) as a kill step for salmonella
We are a SQF certified brownie manufacturing facility. Relatively low risk and our HACCP plan currently only has metal detection as a CCP. I recently went to PCQI training and learned of all the other control points we need to include in our food safety plan to make it FSMA compliant.
We had already discussed our baking as a kill step for salmonella within the facility. Our brownies need to bake well over the kill temp for salmonella to meet our quality standards (and to even be able to cut or consume them). We know our process is a kill step, I just don't have any evidence. I'm looking for studies that I can use on our food safety plan to show this without using a data logging device or expensive testing. I know AIB has done some work in this but they don't have anything brownie specific yet and we do not have the equipment to run the tests.
Does anyone have any experience with this? Any good websites you can direct me to? Research?
Anything at all would be helpful.
Thank you!
~Polly
Polly,
CCPs are funny in this sense because they require you to give scientific reasoning behind why it is a CCP and how it is controlled. Historical data can work as a way to get around this, with some documentation as to the kill temp for salmonella and how you maintain the temperature in your oven. Hard evidence will always be best and if you are running the same product through the oven and never changing the product or the configuration of the product then you should pay the fee to get some temping done in your oven to ensure that you are hitting your temps throughout the entirety of the equipment. Either way, I would search out the information you currently have on the kill temp for salmonella (through your other HACCP documentation) and make sure you have good historical data to show that it has been killed and there have been no contaminations.
The caveat here would be that some auditors are sticklers and historical data might work for one while hard evidence will work for the other. Hedge your bets and get a bit of both.
Cheers!
Hi Polly,
Your oven's temperature profile is likely to be unique so I would think you need to invest in a data logger.
Some useful links you may or may not be aware of:
http://bakerpedia.co...on-baked-goods/
http://bakerpedia.co...tep-calculator/
https://www.aibonlin...tep-Calculators
Kind regards,
Tony
to add to your VALIDATION study (you need those dataloggers)
I used google scholar and got 6700 hits!
https://scholar.goog...ked goods&btnG=
Any good process validation should also include relevant, peer reviewed scientific studies...............that plus your in house data and you never have to do it again
You also cannot set minimums and maximum without both
So maybe your over "is" 185F, but dips to 179 for 30 seconds at the end of a batch............is that sufficient to kill the salmonella.....the scientific research should be able to give you concrete info