Modelling of growth, growth/no-growth interface and nonthermal inactivation areas of Listeria in foods

Growth, growth boundary and inactivation models have been extensively developed in predictive microbiology and are commonly applied in food research nowadays. Few studies though report the development of models which encompass all three areas together. A tiered modelling approach, based on the Gamma hypothesis, is proposed here to predict the behaviour of Listeria.Datasets of Listeria spp. behaviour in laboratory media, meat, dairy, seafood products and vegetables were collected from literature, unpublished sources and from the databases ComBase and Sym'Previus. The explanatory factors were temperature, pH, water activity, lactic and sorbic acids. For the growth part, 697 growth kinetic datasets were fitted. The estimated growth rates and 2021 additional growth primary datasets were used to fit the secondary growth models. In a second step, the fitted model was used to predict the growth/no-growth boundary. For the inactivation modelling phase, 535 inactivation curves were used.Gamma models with and without interactions between the explanatory factors were used for the growth and boundary models. The correct prediction percentage (predicted growth when growth is observed + predicted inactivation when inactivation is observed) varied from 62% to 81% for the models without interactions, and from 85% to 87% for the models with interactions. The median error for the predicted population size was less than 0.34 log₁₀(CFU/mL) for all models. The kinetics of inactivation were fitted with modified Weibull primary models and the estimated bacterial resistance was then modelled as a function of the explanatory factors. The error for the predicted microbial population size was less than 0.71 log₁₀(CFU/mL) with a median value of less than 0.21 for all foods.The model enables the quantification of the increase or decrease in the bacterial population for a given formulation or storage condition. It might also be used to optimise a food formulation or storage condition in the case of a targeted increase or decrease of the bacterial population.