A consumer-phase exposure assessment of Salmonella Typhimurium from Irish fresh pork sausages: II. Cooking and consumption modules

Stochastic modelling of the internal temperature of pork sausage during cooking showed that the concentration of Salmonella Typhimurium in fried servings from contaminated sausage packs (0.045 CFU/g; 95% CI: 0.021-0.623 CFU/g) are lower than in grilled servings (0.078 CFU/g; 95% CI: 0.054-1.668 CFU/g); although the occurrence of fried and grilled servings with more than 100 CFU would be very low at ∼0.014% and ∼0.023%, respectively. A two-component hurdle negative binomial distribution fitted to the exposure data estimated that out of 10,000 cooked servings from contaminated sausage packs, Salmonella cells are expected to be partially inactivated only in ∼58-62 servings. The estimated Salmonella concentration in undercooked fried sausages (∼4.4 CFU/g; 95% CI: 0.001-37.098 CFU/g) was validated with experimental results. The model proved useful in the definition of recommended cooking times for product labelling (∼9-12 min) while scenario analysis predicted that, for the current level of Salmonella Typhimurium in retail pork sausage, decreasing the product's storage approximately by half and cooking for an additional half minute can reduce the current levels of exposure by ∼70%.