Sous vide foods: conclusions of an ECFF botulinum working party

This paper summarizes the conclusions of a European Chilled Food Federation 'Botulinum Working Party' that considered the safety, with respect to Clostridium botulinum, of chilled foods that have been mildly heated in hermetically sealed packages or heated and packed without recontamination. It was concluded that for such foods safety can be assured by a minimum heat process and strict limitation of chill shelf life or, for longer life products, by storage below 3 degrees C, by heat treatment sufficient to deliver a 6 log reduction in numbers of spores of psychotrophic strains of C. botulinum and storage below 10 degrees C, or by intrinsic preservation factors shown to be effective in modeling or inoculated pack/challenge tests. Further work is recommended on challenge test protocols, improved models, spore occurrence and heat resistance in different foods and the influence of lysozyme-like activities in certain foods on spore heat resistance. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.