The cold chain of chilled products under supervision in France

Abstract

In the food safety domain, the respect of the cold chain is of prime importance. The present paper presents an original method to monitor the food cold chain of everyday refrigerated food products sold in self service counters of supermarkets and hypermarkets in France. The proposed method consists in dissimulating a small temperature recorder inside the food product at the end of the production line and to send this product, equipped with the concealed device yet undistinguishable from any other, throughout the supply chains. At the end of the cold chain, the consumer who discovers the recorder is invited to send it back to the laboratory. Three types of products were chosen depending on their recommended conservation temperature, their shape and the logistic circuit they were likely to follow. 480 recorders have sent. A return rate of 65% allows the observation of the complete thermal history observed in 314 food products, representing a sum of more than 3 800 recording days. The results are presented in a qualitative form (degrees of compliance / non compliance of the recommended temperature) as well as a quantitative form (average temperature and residence time of the products in the different links of the cold chain) over the entire cold chain, and for each link of the cold chain. The results indicate that ¾ of the food product are conserved in good / very good temperature conditions, and that 3% of the observations dramatically exceed the recommendations, especially at the last stages of the cold chain.

Effectiveness of the cold chain control procedure in the retail sector in Southern Spain

“…It is also worth mentioning the percentage of non-compliance between 60 and 70% for the category of refrigerated vegetables during winter time, and also those for RTE-food and fishery products in the range of 20e30% for the same period. Our findings are similar to those reported by Derens et al (2006) in the case of dairy products, prepared meat and meat products, and keep a good correlation with the distribution of strong-evidence outbreaks by food categories detailed in the last reports by EFSA and ECDC on food-borne outbreaks in the EU (EFSA/ECDC, 2014).…”

“…It is well known that the early stages of the cold chain (processing and distribution) are, in most cases, successfully controlled (Afchain, Derens, Guilpart, & Cornu, 2005). However, the retail level appears to be one of the weakest points where more temperature abuses have been observed (Derens, Palagos, & Guilpart, 2006;EFSA, 2007). Available data on the compliance rate of the retail sector in Europe in controlling the cold chain is still scarce.…”

Cold chain of chilled food in France

“…Today, it is well known that some of the cold chain steps are especially weak, and some studies focus particularly on these points (Carrasco et al, 2007;Dallaire et al, 2006;Derens et al, 2006;James et al, 2008). Nevertheless, the real and complete thermal history of a chilled food product, i.e.…”

“…A previous cold chain survey was performed in 2002 in France (Derens et al, 2006) with the French Association of the Food Industries (Ania study). Three types of chilled product were monitored along the cold chain: prepacked meat, ready to eat or to cook product and yogurt.…”

A QMRA Model for Salmonella in Pork Products During Preparation and Consumption

“…(26,27) At the other boundaries, heat flows are dependent on the ambient temperature, according to Newton's law of cooling. Solution of the partial (46) Taken from Table 4.8 30,50,120], [0.96,0.02,0.02]) min Travel time from retail to the domestic home (47) Answer to question 5.1 (45) Taken from Fig. 8 MM,PC [16,72,104,29,13,3,0,11,0,0,0,0,3,0], [1/4, ½, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,14]) hr Storage time in the refrigerator (47) Answer to question 8 MM,PC 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12] hr Temperature in the refrigerator (47) Data (21) Average of many reported values PC p B = 0.27 -Probability of not washing board (21) Average of many reported values MM,PC…”