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Predictive microbiology

General aspects

Module design

Several models have been proposed in scientific literature over the last few decades.

Sym’Previus has used the following to select from these models:

  • Taking into account of the nature of the foodstuff and not just environmental factors such as temperature, pH or aw because two foodstuffs with the same pH and aw characteristics stored under the same conditions will not always produce the same bacterial response,
  • The robustness of the models or what is necessary to make the model broadly applicable. The models used by Sym’Previus are based on the micro-organism's physiological characteristics (e.g. growth limits). Despite the great microbiological diversity, every bacterial species tested to date complies with the same growth or destruction models that are used by Sym’Previus.
Comment
The obvious contradiction between the simplicity of a theory (taking account of a limited rage of factors) and the complexity of micro-organism behaviour models must be used with great care. The multitude of factors that affect this behaviour and which interact between themselves can obviously not be completely incorporated and reproduced. However, an informed choice of the main factors and their inclusion in the model is slowly but surely resulting in more and more reliable estimations.
Given the multiplicity of the factors, any model, irrespective of how complicated it is, will still be too simple. Predictive microbiology must constantly seek a balance between the simplicity of the models and the accuracy of the predictions and this is the strength of the models used by Sym’Previus.
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