Sterilization of ready to eat meals
Dear all,
We are currently developing a new product category which is ready to eat meals. The first products that we are working on are grilled marinated mushrooms, fish fillet with grilled vegetables and chickpeas soup. Those products have pH values above 5 and we need to sterilize them. Could you please give me some advise on how to determine my target microorganism, and what time - temperature combination whould be sufficient to achieve a safe product? Of course we are going to do all the necessary microbiological analyses to test the product and establish its shelf life, but I currently need some directions, or some usefull bibliography to start with.
Thank you very much for your help and time.
Are you intending to include cooking/reheating instructions?
There is no way to "sterilize" this type of finished good---best you can do is pasteurize them but they would still have to have a short shelf life
Hi Antonia
I think what you need to do is to validate your process?, I do have some guidance docs but they are from previous employers,so I can't share.
However I found the attached on-line (from a webinar) which might be a good starting point for you.
[Poster Title] (foodprotection.org)
If your employer is a member of Campden BRI they can often advise on target microorganisms and cook times to start with.
Good luck - it sounds like an interesting project.
With file