This book focuses on the food safety challenges in the vegetable industry from primary production to consumption. It describes existing and innovative quantitative methods that could be applied to the vegetable industry for food safety and quality, and suggests ways in which such methods can be applied for risk assessment. Examples of application of food safety objectives and other risk metrics for microbial risk management in the vegetable industry are presented. The work also introduces readers to new preservation and packaging methods, advanced oxidative processes (AOPs) for disinfection, product shelf-life determination methods, and rapid analytic methods for quality assessment based on chemometrics applications, thus providing a quantitative basis for the most important aspects concerning safety and quality in the vegetable sector.
Presents risk assessment tools such as predictive microbiology software tools and the food safety objective concept
1. Quantitative Methods for Food Safety and Quality in the Vegetable Industry.- 2. Quality and Safety Management Systems in the Production of Vegetables.- 3. Relevant Pathogenic Spoilage Microorganisms in Vegetable Products.- 4. Water and Wastewater use in the Fresh Produce Industry: Food safety and Environmental Implications.- 5. Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) and Quantitative Analysis for Disinfection and Treatment of Water in the Vegetable Industry.- 6. Quality of Vegetable Products: Assessment of Physical-chemical and Microbiological Changes in Vegetables Products by Non-destructive Methods.- 7. Quantifying Human Health Risks Associated with Microbiological Contamination of Fresh Vegetables.- 8. Quantitative Approaches for Microbial Risk Management in the Vegetable Industry: Case-studies of Application of Food Safety Objectives and other Risk Metrics in the Vegetable Industry.- 9. Optimal Packaging Design and Innovative Packaging Technologies for Minimally Processed Fresh Produce.- 10. Ensuring Fresh Produce Safety and Quality by Utilizing Predictive Growth Models and Predictive Microbiology Software Tools.- 11. Quantitative Tools and Procedures for Shelf Life Determination in Minimally Processed Fruits and Vegetables.- 12. Quantitative Methods for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Applied to the Vegetable Industry.
