Microbial Toxins in Dairy Products , chapter 9: Approaches to Assess the Risks/Modellingof Microbial Growth and Toxin Production

Chapter 9: Food-borne diseases, including those via dairy products, have been recognised as major threats to human health. The causes associated with dairy food-borne disease are the use of raw milk in the manufacture of dairy products, faulty processing conditions during the heat treatment of milk, post-processing contamination, failure in due diligence and an unhygienic water supply. Dairy food-borne diseases affecting human health are associated with certain strains of bacteria belonging to the genera of Clostridium, Bacillus, Escherichia, Staphylococcus and Listeria, which are capable of producing toxins, plus moulds that can produce mycotoxins such as aflatoxins, sterigmatocytin and ochratoxin. Microbial Toxins in Dairy Products reviews the latest scientific knowledge and developments for detecting and studying the presence of these toxins in dairy products, updating the analytical techniques required to examine bacterial and mould toxins and the potential for contamination of milk as it passes along the food chain, i.e. from 'farm-to-fork'. This comprehensive and accessible collection of techniques will help dairy processors, food scientists, technologists, researchers and students to further minimise the incidences of dairy food-borne illnesses in humans. The EU (2002) laid down the general principles and requirements of food law where it had changed the approach to food safety through the integrated control of the food chain, that is, the concept ‘from farm to table’, the precautionary principle, the responsibilities of food business operators, the traceability at all stage of food chain, and the introduction of ‘risk analysis’ (Codex Alimentarius Commission-FAO, 1999). The scope of a risk assessment is dependent on the risk management question and the reason for doing the assessment. The microbiological risk assessment would reveal, for example, either the sources of exposure to the pathogen or determine which pathogen(s) may be present in a specific and/or group of cheeses. This approach is largely a qualitative evaluation of the risk issue. in the process. If a hazard identification is orientated towards the food, then the focus will be on the use of available epidemiological and microbiological data to determine which pathogens could be associated with the products. In the dairy chain, contesting the hazard identification is linked to the microbiological quality of raw milk, the cheesemaking process including raw and/or pasteurization of the milk, maturation of the pressed curd, cross‐contamination, packaging, and handling at home.