A predictive growth model for Clostridium botulinum during cooling of cooked uncured ground beef

A dynamic model to predict the germination and outgrowth of Clostridium botulinum spores in cooked ground beef was presented. Raw ground beef was inoculated with a ten-strain C. botulinum spore cocktail to achieve approximately 2 log spores/g. The inoculated ground beef was vacuum packaged, cooked to 71 °C to heat shock the spores, cooled to below 10 °C, and incubated isothermally at temperatures from 10 to 46 °C. C. botulinum growth was quantified and fitted into the primary Baranyi Model. Secondary models were fitted to maximum specific growth rate and lag phase duration using Modified Ratkowsky equation (R² 0.96) and hyperbolic function (R² 0.94), respectively. Similar experiments were also performed under non-isothermal (cooling) conditions. Acceptable zone prediction (APZ) analysis was conducted on growth data collected over 3 linear cooling regimes from the current study. The model performance (prediction errors) for all 22 validation data points collected in the current work were within the APZ limits (-1.0 to +0.5 log CFU/g). Additionally, two other growth data sets of C. botulinum reported in the literature were also subjected to the APZ analysis. In these validations, 20/22 and 10/14 predictions fell within the APZ limits. The model presented in this work can be employed to predict C. botulinum spore germination and growth in cooked uncured beef under non-isothermal conditions. The beef industry processors and food service organizations can utilize this predictive microbial model for cooling deviations and temperature abused situations and in developing customized process schedules for cooked, uncured beef products.