Establishment of good hygiene practice-based microbiological criteria in food industries: Guidelines using an example for meat preparations

•Development of a GHP-based microbiological criterion following a structured approach.•GHP-based microbiological criterion to assess correct implementation of GHP.•Sampling plan adapted to the specific commodity/food.•Corrective measures to be taken when unsatisfactory results are detected.

In the context of the revision of the Codex Alimentarius Commission document “Principles for the Establishment and Application of Microbiological Criteria CAC/GL 21/1997”, and in the scope of an FAO/WHO pilot project, seven examples on the application of microbiological criteria were developed to help illustrate the different contexts in which microbiological criteria might be used. This example describes a Good Hygiene Practice (GHP)-based microbiological criterion (MC), following the structure agreed by FAO/WHO. A GHP-based MC is a criterion used to monitor the production process of an establishment, to verify if it is functioning as expected and that GHPs are correctly implemented. For the development of this example, the authors chose raw meat preparations as the food commodity of interest, and Escherichia coli as an indicator of the effectiveness of GHPs during production. The sampling plan, including the values of M, m, n, and c, the analytical unit size, the analytical method, interpretation of results and corrective actions in case of non-conformance were based on empirical knowledge and on legislative rules in the countries of origin of the authors. This example is to illustrate the general approach which can be taken to establish such criteria and can be applied to other foods and for other microbiological contaminants.