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Seafood packed in a
reduced oxygen atmosphere (ROP) is an increasingly popular technical method to
extend the shelf life of chilled seafood products, and is especially
appropriate for case-ready items. Shelf life extension makes it possible for retailers to offer seafood of better quality to
their customers, since the extra shelf life creates more freedom to
manage inventory and to ensure freshness of the retail product.
Shelf Life Extension
Based on Oxygen-Reduced Packaging
ROP (oxygen
exclusion, vacuum packing
or packages with CO2
or other gases injected) inhibits the growth of bacteria that need the
oxygen to grow. This is the ROP packaging formula:
No oxygen = no bacteria. No bacteria = no spoilage. No spoilage = greater shelf
life.
The problem is that there
are some types of bacteria that do not need oxygen to grow and--in fact--can
thrive where there is no oxygen. Most of these bacteria are
"bad" bugs, like Clostridium botulinum, which releases
a toxic chemical as it grows. These bacteria will not grow to any
harmful levels unless they have time and high temperatures to get
a good growth spurt going.
Conclusion:
Some means to monitor time
and temperature is therefore essential to ensure the safety of ROP packed
seafood.
Time-temperature
Management Plays a Vital Role
HACCP guidelines are clear.
Excerpt from the U. S. Food
and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition,
Office of Seafood, January, 1999 document "HACCP
REGULATION FOR FISH AND FISHERY PRODUCTS - QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS":
Question: What are the factors that make
Clostridium botulinum a
hazard that is reasonably likely to occur in a fishery product?
Answer: Some factors which contribute to the likelihood of a
Clostridium
botulinum hazard include packing the product under vacuum, in a
deliberately modified atmosphere, in a hermetically sealed container,
inside a package with a film covering that restricts inward oxygen
diffusion, or in oil. Historically, the hazard been controlled
by applying a moderate heat treatment in combination with salt at less
that 10%, or other reduced water activity methods. This type of
processing is not currently in widespread use due to consumer
preferences for minimally processed fresh products.
For additional information consult FDA’s
"Fish and Fishery Products: Hazards and Controls Guide" (Guide), Edition
Two, p. 154.
Question: Is Clostridium botulinum (C. bot.) a hazard in vacuum
packaged raw seafood products that are stored and distributed
refrigerated?
Answer:
Yes, the Guide states that FDA is not aware of any suitable controls
for C. bot. in vacuum packaged raw fish, i.e. such a product
would not contain any known barriers to the growth of C. bot.
Refrigeration alone is not a suitable barrier without adequate
temperature control (monitoring) from processor to consumer.
If a processor intends to pack raw fish in a vacuum package, he will
need to establish adequate safety controls. The most likely procedure
would be to carry out inoculated pack studies. [emphasis added]
The key is "adequate
temperature control (monitoring)".
The question is: what
specifically is meant by this term, "adequate temperature control
(monitoring)"?
Here is an excerpt from the
U. S. Food & Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety & Applied
Nutrition, FISH AND FISHERY PRODUCTS HAZARDS AND CONTROLS GUIDE, January
1998, document "CHAPTER
13 - CLOSTRIDIUM BOTULINUM TOXIN FORMATION":
"If you intend to vacuum
package, or use modified atmosphere packaging or hermetically sealed
packaging for these products or pack them in oil or a similar oxygen
excluding media, you will need to evaluate the effectiveness of other
preventive measures, either singularly, or in combination. Such
evaluation will usually necessitate the performance of inoculated pack
studies under moderate abuse conditions. An example of another
preventive measure to consider is strict temperature controls throughout
distribution and retail sale, such as the use of recorder thermometer
charts or digital time/ temperature data loggers during distribution and
retail storage and sales, or time/temperature
integrators on individual packages." [emphasis added]
It is not cost-effective to
employ recorder thermometer charts or digital time/ temperature data
loggers for the entire distribution scheme (from "processor to
consumer") for ROP packed seafood, so the use of time/temperature
integrators is the only method that is entirely effective. We have
analyzed the technical background of monitoring for Clostridium botulinum
formation and have concluded that certain of our formulations are ideal for monitoring
as recommended. This analysis is available for downloading and
printing, as well as a easy-to-print version of this page, and the seminal
article by Skinner and Larkin (Journal of Food Protection. Vol. 61. No.
9. 1998.) that deals with the relevant scientific background:
Skinner
and Larkin (1998) Reprint
Documentation of preferred
CheckPoint® III Label for ROP applications
We are currently working
with seafood producers and retailers to introduce this useful application
of CheckPoint® technology.
More Questions and Answers -
ROP Seafood and TTI's
It is an acronym for Time Temperature Integrator,
a more generic term for CheckPoint® labels.
Temperature loggers are useful to monitor whole
truck shipments from processor to retail store or warehouse. They
also are the method of choice for certain types of monitoring in
processing plants, along with temperature monitoring systems that use
wireless technology or data collection systems combined with handheld
devices. These electronic devices are not cold chain monitors.
For ROP seafood, the entire
cold chain from "processor to consumer" needs monitoring (see
FDA excerpt above). No hardware device (logger, recorder, etc.) can
track a single container through its unique temperature history--only a
smart label TTI (CheckPoint®) can do that. And that is what
is required.
No. The development of
Clostridium
botulinum in ROP Seafood is a time-temperature effect, not just
temperature. (see the information in white paper above - available
soon).
The development of toxin by
Clostridium botulinum is not a threshold effect--that is to say, there is
not a critical temperature above which toxin producing activity occurs and
below which it does not occur. There is a time-temperature envelope
which defines the conditions under which the detrimental activity may
occur.
We can provide more
detailed information. If you wish to discuss a TTI program, please
call us at 1-800-820-0817 and ask for Stephen Marlowe or email us at
s.marlowe@vitsab.com.
Please call us to discuss the specifics of your application.
We are experts in designing temperature label solutions that
maximize product quality and safety without sacrificing full shelf
extension benefits. *Reduced Oxygen Packaging - gas
flushed or 'oxygen barrier packed' products | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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What does the word "TTI" mean?