Updated Microbiological Criteria are now available
The Microbiological Criteria Compendium has been reviewed by Food Standards Australia new Zealand and the new version is now available on the FSANZ website.
The Compendium contains a lot of information that assists food businesses and testing laboratories in ensuring that foods and the processes involved in making them meet internationally recognised food safety and hygiene standards.
The new version not only includes the food safety criteria and the process hygiene criteria, but new guidance on environmental monitoring, particularly with the establishment of a Listeria monocytogenes monitoring program. The updated process hygiene criteria now includes dairy products from raw bulk milk to components like cream, cheese and liquid milk.
The Compendium provides information about both the pathogens and indicator organisms.
This compendium brings together information on pathogens and indicator organisms significant to food safety, microbiological guideline criteria for Ready To Eat foods, and process hygiene criteria that have been established for specific food commodities.
The following is a quote directly from the revised compendium, explaining what each of the criteria means and why they are needed;
“Microbiological criteria are established to support decision making about a food or process
based on microbiological testing. Criteria can be developed and applied for different
purposes across the food supply chain, with different consequences if the limits are not met.
Internationally, the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex) and the International
Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods (ICMSF) have provided the lead on
contemporary food safety management approaches and applying microbiological criteria. An
important principle is that a microbiological criterion is established at a specified point in the
food chain for a particular purpose. In general, this is to establish the safety of a food or to
verify that the food safety control system or elements of it are working as intended.
The microbiological criteria used by food regulatory agencies generally include:
food safety criteria: microbiological criteria that are applied to determine the safety of a
food lot. Food safety criteria are included in the Australia New Zealand Food Standards
Code (the Code) and are applied to food for sale (e.g. at any point following final product
manufacture).
process hygiene criteria: microbiological criteria applied to verify hygiene measures or
control of process. Process hygiene criteria are included in Section 2 of this document.
They are applied at a specified point in the manufacturing process.”
The Compendium is available at;