After the food scandals of the late-1980s and early-1990s, and the increasing knowledge on foodborne and waterborne pathogen, the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures was set in place in 1995 to place the frame of measures taken by a World Trade Organisation member to protect human, plant or animal life or health within its territory from specific dangers, and which could affect global trade. These steps that WTO members Apply, are categorized as sanitary about animal or human life or health or phytosanitary about plant life or health. The SPS agreement requires WTO members to base their SPS measures on a risk assessment, to be able to attain their anticipated Appropriate Level of Protection.
The microbiological safety of Foods is handled by the effective implementation of management measures which have been validated, where appropriate, throughout the food chain to minimise contamination and enhance food safety. To be able to confirm the control measures in place and also to reply to the public health protection goals, metrics are described on this risk-based strategy. While microbiological criteria were originally based on end product approval, new microbial risk management metrics are suggested by the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Food for the institution of a more direct connection with public health outcomes, from the Food Safety Objectives to the Procedure Criterion to answer the new framework of the SPS agreement.
These Metrics are meant to construct a preventive strategy, which can be expected to offer more benefits than sole reliance on microbiological testing through approval sampling of individual lots of the last product to be put on the market. Microbiological bioburden testing criteria are nevertheless still suitable for verifying that food safety control systems are implemented properly, though they shouldn’t be the only measures in place for risk management decision making4,11. A Dedicated process of creating and expressing microbiological criteria must be followed to prepare specifications which are technically appropriate, consistent, and appropriate to the purpose for which they have been established10. This begins by means of a hierarchical format that includes identified parameters sampling, based microbial limits and definition of the analytical method. Microbiological specifications Were initially introduced at border controls by federal authorities for goods with unknown background, i.e., not contemplating the food safety practices along the procedure.