Food safety implications of adding soft cheese to inside of naan bread

Hi,

Once again i need some good advice from all  food saftey experts, we currently manufacture ambient naan bread, but looking to develop new product with cheese in side the bread, basically inserting cheese inside the dough before baking. now question comes out as below.

x  Will product be still suitable for ambient storage..? 

x  what life should usually this will have- I know it will require some micro testing to get confirmed life, but just an indication for a start would be helpful.

x  Does the product become High risk product because of adding cheese..? does the site then requires HR-LR segregation ..?

any advice shall be really appreciated.

thanks a million..

Nadim

Hi,

 

Once again i need some good advice from all  food saftey experts, we currently manufacture ambient naan bread, but looking to develop new product with cheese in side the bread, basically inserting cheese inside the dough before baking. now question comes out as below.

 

x  Will product be still suitable for ambient storage..? NO, product would require refrigeration

 

x  what life should usually this will have- I know it will require some micro testing to get confirmed life, but just an indication for a start would be helpful. i would think this would depend on the type of cheese (thinking straight moisture content as bread has everything mold/yeast need to grow)      7 days tops, INLCUDING the date of manufacture

 

x  Does the product become High risk product because of adding cheese..? does the site then requires HR-LR segregation ..?  Cheese has tested positive for listeria fairly frequently so you have this to deal with and one could think that would put you in high risk.............how do you prevent listeria from coming inside your plant and how do you prevent the cross contamination

 

FYI introducing dairy into your plant means you need to control the MILK allergen as well (if you don't already use dairy in any of your current products)

 

any advice shall be really appreciated.

 

thanks a million..

 

Nadim

Agree with Scampi on this, much on the risk of moisture may happen between the interface of the bread (Naan) and the cheese. Considering you will have "airspace" due to different expansion (from heating) between the two, the "airspace" may provide a good ground for microbial growth.

While cheese is added before "kill step", you may need to validate that the current setting will still suffice given you will add cheese pieces. You will also consider how will you handle cheese from reception to production. Is the cheese to be added packed that will ensure all open cheese will be used for one batch? If not, how will you handle the left over cheese and the utensils that you used with it.

In most regulation, plain bread is usually LR, if you add filling, it becomes MR or HR, not knowing how will you add the cheese, cannot really say so much about the segregation but as Scampi said, milk allergen should be top of mind.

Hi Both, 

Thanks for prompt reply..

Allergen is not an issue, we already have certain product with milk, so control is already in place, raw ingredients storage is also avaialble, but finish product temperature control is something new to be consider in current process flow.  does this means that naan bread has to be cool down to below 5c within 90 mins after cooking..?

regards

Nadim

I would think that that temperature reduction would be your target.............you may run into an issue however, of condensation within the naan as the cheese is going to take substantially longer to cool due to it's density.