Evaluation of risk based microbiological criteria for Campylobacter in broiler carcasses in Belgium using TRiMiCri

Campylobacteriosis is the most frequently reported foodborne zoonosis worldwide. Consumer´s exposure to Campylobacter might be reduced by establishing a microbiological criterion (MC) for Campylobacter on broiler meat. In the present study two possible approaches were evaluated, using the freely available software tool for risk based microbiological criteria TRiMiCri (http://tools.food.dtu.dk/trimicri). The first approach was the traditional one that implies a microbiological limit (ML-MC) and the second one which is based on the relative risk estimate (RRL-MC). The analyses were based on Campylobacter quantitative data collected from 28 Campylobacter positive bathes processed in 6 Belgian broiler slaughterhouses. To evaluate the performance of ML-MC, n=6, different c (0,1,2) and m (100,1 000,10 000) were used. Results showed that more than 90% of Campylobacter positive batches were not complying with strict ML criteria based on the m=100 for all applied combination of c. The RRL approach requires a baseline risk which was estimated based on the Campylobacter baseline data collected in Belgium in 2008. Approximately 60% of evaluated Campylobacter positive batches account for higher risk than the baseline risk. For both approaches, application of less stringent criteria results in lower percentage of NC and higher minimum relative residual risks (MRRR; it refers to the change in risk when all batches are sampled and all NC batches undergo treatment that effectively eliminates Campylobacter so they are replaced by zero risk batches). It was also observed that the number of samples (n) had little effect on risk estimates. Additionally, the results from ML-MC and RRL-MC follow the same curve when plotting percentage of NC against MRRR. However, for RRL-MC the percentage of NC batches and MRRR was lower and higher, respectively. To conclude, obtained results indicate that TRiMiCri is a useful and user friendly tool to make a risk based decision on the choice of the MC