Microbial risk assessment: a chain perspective on improving the safety of broiler meat

This paper focuses on the safety of broiler meat, and especially on the presence of Salmonella on the meat. In the past, numerous researchers studied the factors affecting Salmonella colonisation of broilers, Salmonella transfer in the slaughterhouse, Salmonella transfer in the consumer home, etc. Nevertheless, it is unclear how the Salmonella risk to the consumer is reduced most (cost) effectively: e.g. by slaughterhouse measures or by lowering the prevalence at farm-level? Microbial risk assessment (MRA) can assist with this kind of problems, since it estimates the public health risk by linking the various stages of the supply chain together (using experimental data, predictive microbiology models, etc). An overview of quantitative models in literature is given and finally future applications are discussed.