Testing for Listeria during shelf life assessment
Hello Everyone,
I am setting up a testing plan for our product shelf-life trial. Our product is Ready to Eat with pH adjusted as preservative and shelf-life is under 5 days so Listeria specification is under 100cfu/g sample. My question here is do we need to test at every storage stage (2 hours in between) or we can only test at the end of the shelf life (I am quite confident with our Listeria history).
I appreciate any suggestion from you.
Dear NancyVnz
My factory, all products will test at the end of shelf life, and in my opinion with your product test at the end of the shelf life.
Tam,
Thank you. I am discussing with an accredited laboratory now see if they have a growth rate reference for Listeria. It can be a good evidence for the decision.
Kind regards,
Nancy
Hello Everyone,
I am setting up a testing plan for our product shelf-life trial. Our product is Ready to Eat with pH adjusted as preservative and shelf-life is under 5 days so Listeria specification is under 100cfu/g sample. My question here is do we need to test at every storage stage (2 hours in between) or we can only test at the end of the shelf life (I am quite confident with our Listeria history).
I appreciate any suggestion from you.
I query yr specificaton. L.monocytogenes is normally the (safety) element referred.
Agree with Charles and I expect Nancy you refer to L.Monocytogenes? Though may depend on your product/audience as there are exceptions i.e. RTE specifically for vulnerable populations in which Listeria spp is also tightly controlled.
You may find a predictive modelling program useful if you are trying to establish pathogen growth levels to which you can then better direct the shelf life testing. One example is Combase, which I've used to predict L.Monocytogenes for RTE products with shelf lives of 3 & 4 days.