Behavior of Yersinia enterocolitica and Salmonella typhimurium in Crottin goat's cheese

The primary mathematical models used to analyse the behavior of Y. enterocolitica and S. typhimurium were the Vitalistic, Gompertz's empirical and Churchill's model. The mean square error was calculated for the three models in order to evaluate the goodness-of-fit of each one. For Y. enterocolitica, the Vitalistic model was the best at the three temperatures. For S. typhimurium, there was no significant difference between the three models at 5 and 15 °C; the Churchill model was clearly the best at 25 °C. These results confirm that, in order to predict the risk of transmission of pathogenic microorganisms in foods using mathematical models, it is essential to analyse their behavior in specific foods.