7/14/2023 0 Comments Water activityIt gave the sanitarian broader latitude in assessing risk of foodborne illness beyond the more traditional time/temperature controls. The NSF standard and Food Code together ushered in a new era in which the definition of potentially hazardous food was dramatically expanded. Additionally, heat treatment that destroys vegetative cells and the effect of packaging, which prevents recontamination, is now widely considered in the evaluation of foods offered to the public. This synergism controls or eliminates pathogens that would otherwise be ineffective when used alone. The 2005 Food Code considers the interaction of a w and pH under certain conditions of heat treatment and packaging. The purpose of this standard is “… to serve as a communication tool between manufacturers of product, retailers, and public health officials.” It provides test methods and evaluation criteria to allow for the determination that a food product meets FDA Food Code criteria for a “non-potentially hazardous food” and does not require refrigeration for safety.įinally, about four years ago, the Conference for Food Protection made the giant leap through its recommendation to include a w and pH in the latest iteration of the Food Code. The concept of water activity and food safety were merged as a standard when in November 2000, NSF International issued ANSI/NSF 75-2000, Non-potentially hazardous foods. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and its Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) including water activity as a means of microbial control in their Generic HACCP Model 10, Heat-treated, Shelf-stable Meat and Poultry Products.Įarlier versions of the FDA Food Code stipulated what science already knew: that below a certain water activity level (a w 0.85) most foods would not support pathogenic bacterial growth. This was followed in short order by both the U.S. Here, water activity is specifically targeted as a microbial control measure during the production process. Expanding on this, the use of water activity in relation to control measures and food safety comes in the form of in-process detection through Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP). From all that I’ve read, using water activity as a microbiological control finds its grounding in parts and paragraphs of Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) regulations from Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations. And, it has been only a few short years that water activity has had any impact in the way we go about our retail regulatory business. It has only been the last decade that water activity had a real impact on regulatory criteria. The science and accompanying technology proved invaluable. In real time, we could now maximize valuable refrigeration space for those foods most sensitive to temperature controls. It eliminated collecting samples, carrying them to the laboratory and waiting for results. By measuring the a w of the various foods kept “on ice,” we could assess many foods that heretofore were deemed on the cusp of “potentially hazardous” and were treated as worst-case scenario. The burgeoning incarcerated population put a strain on all foodservice equipment, specifically refrigeration. It rapidly became a valuable must-have tool, particularly for those of us who worked with correctional kitchens. In the mid-1990s, the first truly portable water activity measuring device significantly broadened the range of foods we could assess in the field for potential risk of foodborne illness. We also used a Brix refractometer to measure the specific gravity of foods containing sugar these crude subjective data were sometimes the basis for suggesting alternative food safety measures to the operator. However, it seemed to work, even in the absence of defining a particular set of circumstances, including such factors as pH. This was limited to only to those foods that lent themselves to this type of analysis. When I encountered manufactured brined foods not requiring refrigeration, I would take a measurement with the instrument record it in a notebook and use those data, albeit speculative, as some sort of a standard when I found a similar food prepared in a restaurant I was inspecting. For example, as part of my state-issued inspection “tool kit,” I was given a salinity refractometer. I guess we sanitarians have always used it but in a rather circuitous way. As part of the regulatory community, I can safety say that it really wasn’t even a blip on the radar screen until some 20 years ago. The concept of using water activity (a w) as a means of controlling foodborne illness in the retail food industry is a relatively recent addition to the applied science of food safety.
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