Ready-to-eat Foods - Pathogens of Concern and Intervention Controls

Instructor: Rotimi Toki

Description:

Consumer demand for minimally processed products with a longer shelf-life has resulted in the mass production and distribution of chilled convenience ready to eat (RTE) foods. However, ready to eat foods remain a significant vehicle for foodborne pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes. The challenges are enormous because production of ready to eat foods frequently involves extensive processing and packaging. Therefore, this webinar is designed to review current knowledge on the pathogens of concern, sources and intervention controls.
The webinar will provide a review on the different types of ready to eat foods and pathogens of main concern. The sources of pathogens will be described along with cross-contamination points within the process. Intervention controls applied on raw materials, processing environment and equipment, personnel, finished product, transportation and distribution will be reviewed along with the methodology to verify the efficacy. 

Why Should you Attend:
Attend this webinar to have a clear understanding of issues which may lead to contamination. The training session will dwell extensively on implementation of targeted control and how to use environmental monitoring programmes to verify the ongoing effectiveness of the sanitation programme and also to determine if further control measures are necessary to eliminate or reduce contamination. Attention will also be given to follow-up action as a result of detection of pathogenic organism. Specific food sector issues would also be discussed. 

At the end of the webinar, the attendees would gain the appropriate knowledge on how to pay attention to detail as the primary component to effective control of pathogen in the production of microbiologically safe RTE foods. 

Objectives of the Presentation:

• Identification of sources of contamination
• Recognising and reducing risks of contamination
• General operation issues
• Elimination of niche environments
• Measures to verify control of pathogens
• Environmental monitoring programmes
• Assessment of individual production lines
• Shelf-Life
• Issues Specific to Particular Sectors

Who can Benefit:

• Food Processors and Manufacturers
• Owners of SME's
• Production Managers
• QA & QC Managers
• HACCP Coordinators
• Microbiologist and Food Processing Engineers
• Food Scientists and Technologists
• Hygiene Managers
• Catering managers
• Government Food Inspectors