MIcrobiological Specification of Fresh Vegetable

Dear all,

Can any one give me the Microbiological specification of Fresh Vegetable.

Regards,
UR

Dear uzma,

Some relevant input requirements -

finished packed product or not?
vegetable = ?
regulatory or not ?? If regulatory, where ?

Regardless, it may be fixed by a customer of course.

Rgds / Charles.C

Dear Charles.C

I am working in a RTE Food for human eating and we use Fresh vegetable as a Raw material. We require organoleptic and Microbiological limitation on the basis we can reject or accept raw material (Potato, Onion, Okra, Tomato, Chili, Ginger, and Garlic etc)

Product likes: Retorted-- Rice, Curry, Vegetable, and Sauce.
Name Like: Daal mukhani, Chana Masala, Vegetable Pulao and Biryani (Rice), Quorma sauce, Mix Vegetable.

All products prepared in Kitchen & packed in retorted pouches then processed in batch retort.

Regards

UR

Dear uzma,

Thks yr input. I will try to generalise as much as possible although there are a few vegetables which are famous for microbiological problems, eg bean sprouts.


I deduce that all yr final product is sterilised similar to canning. This has "HACCP" relevance to incoming materials since any pathogens present should (presumably) be "removed" as compared to a salad type item. The actual result obviously depends on yr retorting process.

Some references suggest that micro. specs may not be relevant for incoming raw material where a canning-type process is involved due to above factors. eg see below -

 retorted vegetables.png   266.76KB   30 downloads

Most published vegetable specifications, I think, refer to product which will be consumed without process / consumer heat treatment which may be conservative in yr case as per above comment. generally, many refs suggest that at a minimum yr supplier should offer GAP-type assurance of safety/quality for his product. This depends on yr requirements to the supplier / local situation (?). If RTE standard is yr basic target some useful specs are in the attachments below, the later ver. has been updated as per current EC requirements, you will see that yr interest is prob. in group 5 in older spec (or perhaps less if you prefer a salad interpretation to access plate count data.) The later version separates the discussion more on safety / non-safety parameters, most of the former parameter hv same values as older version (I think).

 uk micro. phls food_Guidelines (2000).pdf   146.26KB   79 downloads

 uk microbiological guidelines 2009 RTE.pdf   1012.42KB   101 downloads

Hope the above is helpful. Not really my field so pls revert if you want more details for any other "vegetable" people who may be here.

Rgds / Charles.C