Salmonella Contamination in Chocolate Products: Simulation Model and Scenario Analysis

Safety in the food industry is gaining more and more importance every passing day. In recent years, several outbreaks of Salmonella have occurred in chocolate products. Traceability and HACCP system are important instruments for the food safety management. Traceability is useful to properly and efficiently handle a recall, but by itself it has no effects on the safety of the production. The HACCP system is useful to identify both the production stages that can assure the final product safety and the ones that might increase the hazard of contamination. The aim of this paper is to study the flow of cocoa beans along the supply chain, until they are transformed in dark chocolate bars in order to study three different scenarios of traceability systems and recontamination. A simulation model in Plant Simulation has been developed; it includes models of survival and thermal inactivation of Salmonella over time and a simple traceability system. Key-Words: Discrete event simulation, cocoa-chocolate supply chain, safety, traceability, Plant Simulation, Salmonella