AIB International is offering bakeries the power to validate their food safety preventive controls with a first of its kind baking process kill step calculator and consulting service that accurately evaluates Salmonella destruction in bakery products. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) requires validation and verification of thermal processes or kill-step, creating an industry-wide need to scientifically validate thermal processes to ensure product safety.

Beginning November 3, 2015, commercial bakers can use AIB’s free Baking Process Kill Step Calculator to evaluate the lethality of a thermal process (baking) to destroy Salmonella in their hamburger buns and demonstrate effectiveness of the process to comply with FSMA. The interactive calculator works by using oven time and temperature parameters to automatically determine the total process lethality (e.g., 5 log) for Salmonella. If the desired log reduction is achieved for the baking process and pathogen of concern, the generated report can be used as guidance and supporting documentation for FSMA’s validation and verification process.

“The food industry has long believed that all biological organisms like yeast or pathogens are killed in the oven, and critical product quality attributes are achieved”, says Lakshmikantha Channaiah, Microbiology Director at AIB International. “Under FSMA, the FDA is requiring proof of that theory; however, prior to AIB’s latest contribution, there was no publically available research to use as foundational scientific validation.”

AIB International collaborated with stakeholders Kansas State University, ABA FTRAC, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to design, execute, and submit for publication peer-reviewed research supporting the hypothesis that typical baking processes for hamburger buns serve as a lethal kill step. This important work, currently under review, will be the first publically-available scientific research for kill step validation in bakery products. The initial calculator determines lethality of a bun baking process, with additional calculators for muffins, whole wheat bread, and cookies expected by early 2016.

The industry benefits through greater food safety assurance, compliance with a new regulation, and avoidance of individual bakeries having to conduct foundational research, which would run upwards of $50,000 per product category.

Commercial bakeries looking for additional support can schedule AIB’s Kill Step Validation Consulting service; a professional will visit the bakery, collect appropriate time and temperature data, calculate lethality of the baking process, and assist with data interpretation.

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