Assessment of food safety risks in catering establishments
2007
Melngaile, A., Latvia Univ. of Agriculture, Jelgava (Latvia) | Karklina, D., Latvia Univ. of Agriculture, Jelgava (Latvia)
The aim of the research was to assess food safety risks in catering establishments. To analyse food safety risks during production and distribution of ready-to-eat food in catering establishments, internal database of the Food and Veterinary service of the Republic of Latvia was used. Catering establishments, food items, technological processing methods, as well as environmental objects were encoded to perform mathematical analyses of state's monitoring and surveillance data. The probability of the microbiological risk factors coliforms and S.aureus in food and environmental samples as well as the total plate count in ready-to-eat food was assessed to forecast common risks in catering establishments and to set hygiene management priorities in frame of HACCP procedures. For estimation of individual risk factors, results were statistically analysed using SPSS statistical package and a p is less than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. The significant differences were established between certain bacteria presence in food and such factors as food group, method of technological processing, and type of catering establishment. The results on bacterial contamination of food correlate with the results on contamination of environmental objects. The research suggests that control of food safety risks that is built on testing of pathogenic bacteria is not effective enough to evaluate actual level of implementation of hygiene measures in catering establishments. Risk assessment during routine monitoring both in state's official control level and catering establishments' self-control level should be concentrated on testing of hygiene indicator microorganisms rather than pathogenic microorganisms to establish and prevent food safety risks.
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