Salmonella_Predictions Excel add-in to predict Salmonella concentration throughout the pork chain.
The Salmonella_Predictions add-in has been developed at the Institute of Food Research, Norwich, UK under European funding (BIOTRACER project, Contract 036272). The software is a complementing tool for biotracing in the pork chain by predicting the dependence of Salmonella concentration on the environment. Biotracing models have been developed for Salmonella in the pork chain as part of the BIOTRACER project; their objective is to identify the source of contamination when Salmonella is detected at any step of the pork chain.
The Salmonella_Predictions Excel add-in combines probabilistic and kinetics models to give predictions on the concentration of Salmonella spp. at any stage of the pork chain under fluctuating pH, Aw and/or temperature. Predictions can be obtained between 0-30°C, 2.5 - 7 pH and 0.78-1 for Aw. Data to fit the models were obtained from the ComBase database.
The software is available for free download at the following site:
http://www.ifr.ac.uk/safety/SalmonellaPredictions/
Reference to cite when using the program:
Carmen Pin, Gaspar Avendaño-Perez, Elena Cosciani-Cunico, Natalia Gómez-Tomé, Antonia Gounadaki, George-John Nychas, Panos Skandamis and Gary Barker. 2010. Modelling Salmonella concentration throughout the pork chain by considering growth and survival in fluctuating conditions of temperature, pH and Aw. International Journal of Food Microbiology (in press)