Managing food safety risks in ready-to-eat foods

Food business operators are constantly faced with tough decisions on food safety and quality, but often lack the knowledge required to take the best action. The EU-funded project STARTEC (Decision support tools to ensure safe, tasty and nutritious advanced ready-to-eat foods for healthy and vulnerable consumers) supported industry workers to overcome this challenge.

The project developed tools to assess food safety and quality of ready-to-eat foods when using novel technologies such as biopreservation, pressure treatment and new packing methods. In particular, it focused on common food safety-related pathogens and toxins such as salmonella, staphylococcus, Escherichia coli and listeria. STARTEC also paid special attention to foods intended for the sick and elderly.

Bringing together experts in food chemistry, food microbiology, food process technology and information technology, the project team worked on cost-benefit analyses and risk assessment. It mapped typical challenges that small and medium-sized food producers face, studying flow and process of different raw materials in large batches. For example, it looked at the risks involved in adding pre-cooked, cut and frozen ingredients to ready-to-eat foods after heat treatment.

STARTEC also looked at how adding meat, dairy, vegetables or seafood ingredients with different levels of quality or contamination to both raw and cooked food impacts its quality. The project team confirmed, among its findings, that microwaving has only a limited effect on eliminating pathogens like listeria, probably because of uneven heat distribution, as previously suspected.

The project team finalised a customisable prototype of the decision-support tool to assist food production small businesses in addressing spoilage and contamination more effectively. The tool includes a cost-benefit feature that factors in quality, safety and costs across the supply chain. Once the tool is successfully commercialised, the food industry will come a step closer to promoting health and safety, especially for the most vulnerable consumer groups.