Potentially Hazardous Food- Chocolate Frosting

Hello!

I am working with a company that produces chocolate fillings that fall into the PHF category because of the pH is 5.6 and the aW is 0.95.  From the FDA guidelines, it suggests a challenge study OR public scientific studies.

 I found the reference: https://www.fda.gov/...rdous-Foods.pdf and on page 72, it has chocolate pie and donut filling.

 This item in the reference link above passed the challenge studies (product 19).  The only items that are a bit different are that we don’t have egg in our product and the potassium sorbate is at .19% instead of .49%.

 We heat to the same processing parameters as #19 as well.  Would this be sufficient enough to say that this product, due to its low risk profile and clean production environment, is exempt from PHF/TCS?  

Thank you in advance!

It is exempt.

My thoughts exactly, thank you for conferring! Happy holidays!