Baking in ovens and thermal canning
Hope all are doing well. Earlier I was working in canned food industry, currently I have joined in baking manufacturing industry where we are using batch deck ovens. I remember as per USFDA thermal canning time temperature must monitor continuously either by data recorders which was recording data using thermocouples or by paper charts in batch retorts.. my first doubt is there any requirements for the same for baking in Ovens as well also my second doubt is for canning the retorts must validate by recognized third-party company is there any requirement that validation for heat distribution and penetration study and process recommendations should do for baking.
Would appreciate your valuable feedbacks and advice
Best regards,
Mohammed Salim
Validation provides us that processes are effective in maintaining the safety and quality of products. The purpose of this validation shall be to confirm that the control measures are capable of achieving the intended control of the significant food safety hazard.
The highly stringent validation and records for canned items is in part due to their high moisture and the related microbial risk. Baked goods and the FDA are not my area of specialty, but the validation and verification requirements are likely to be much lower in a shelf stable dry goods food category.
In baking there is the kill step or thermal lethality component and then there is the quality component (is the product organoleptically viable). Example here is you bake a loaf of bread at 350°F/177°C for "x" amount of time to achieve a quality finished product. The actual thermal lethality required might only be 250°F/121°F for "x" amount of time. The time required for thermal lethality to inactivate salmonella is less than that of what is required for the quality finished product. So you end up with a lethality time and temperature required and a processing (quality) time and temperature required. You wouldn't want to eat an underbaked loaf of bread even if the lethality time and temperature were achieved. So generally the quality component ends up being what is desired for processing and this exceeds the lethality required.
*****Disclaimer that all mentioned above greatly depends on the product/process, this is just my observation from working in the baking industry.*****
Now on to the validation and verification......
Validate that you are in fact achieving the desired temperatures to meet processing parameters. You can use a data logger in the oven, inoculate flour or other raw materials used (would need to consult with your lab) with Enterococcus faecium or the like, and/or use one of AIB's kill step calculators https://www.aibinter...tep-validation/. This is the validation part.
Verification would then be taking product and/or oven temperature's at a given frequency (based on risk and/or your operational methods). Prove that the products meet the desired time/temperature in the process and are not dipping down below what is required per your validation study.
All of this can be done relatively onsite and does not require a process authority. If you would like to outsource again AIB is a great resource, however they are located in the US.
Hope this helps, all the best!