Interaction of Factors to Control Microbial Spoilage of Refrigerated Foods ¹

A variety of factors can prevent growth of microorganisms. Combining inhibitory factors can result in considerable improvement in the microbial stability of foods. Suitable combinations of growth-limiting factors at subinhibitory levels can be devised so that certain microorganisms can no longer proliferate in the product (the hurdles concept). Knowledge of the effectiveness of a wide range of combinations of hurdles for a variety of microorganisms would be valuable in product development in allowing predictions of microbial stability and safety of new formulations. Data generated in the laboratory could be used to predict the effect that changing certain factors would have relative to other factors with regard to increasing or decreasing microbial stability. These types of predictions are particularly important with refrigerated foods since the storage temperature is frequently the primary hurdle, and temperature abuse is not uncommon.