Risk ranking has identified Salmonella, Cronobacter, and E. coli as the main microbial hazards in infant formula.
Eight risk ranking steps and seven criteria were used to rank 34 microbiological hazards in infant foods.
These criteria are process survival, recontamination, growth opportunity, meal preparation, hazard-food association evidence, food consumption habits of infants and toddlers in the EU, and microbiological hazard severity.
Microbial risks in infant formula were compared via three methods, according to the study published in the journal Food Research International.
Researchers conducted a case study to rank microbiological hazard risks in infant formula to validate the criteria and ranking approaches. They compared results from the three risk ranking methods and evaluated findings against expert opinions to ensure their accuracy.
Results ranked Salmonella, Cronobacter, and Shiga-toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) as the top risks in infant formula. However, they displayed varying orders due to method-specific factors.
Method differences
A hazard identification step involved pairing hazards with foods, process inactivation, recontamination, growth opportunity, and the selection of a microbiological hazard association level with a food item.
When applying a filter, the most relevant hazards were Salmonella, STEC, Cronobacter, non-STEC, and Cryptosporidium.
In the risk scoring method, multiple hazards obtained identical scores, making distinguishing and prioritizing them hard. Cronobacter had the highest rank, followed in joint second by Salmonella and Hepatitis A, while the next eight hazards received the same score.
In the risk value ranking, Salmonella was at the top, followed by STEC, Cronobacter, non-STEC, and Shigella. Scientists said hazards without known links to infant formula, like Shigella, appeared in the top five, which could be attributed to its ability to cause illness without needing growth in foods.
Another method ranked Fasciola and Hepatitis E, which have no known association with infant formula, relatively high. Scientists said this was likely due to reasons around risk scoring and risk value methods.
Data on outbreaks caused by microbial hazards in various product categories in the European Union spanning 2011 to 2021 was gathered. Outbreak information in the United States from 2008 to 2018 was also collected. EU food recalls data from 1980 to 2021 came from the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), and U.S. recall data covered 2007 to 2022.
Efforts were related to the European Safe Foods For Infants (SAFFI) project from 2020 to 2024, which focused on food safety for children under 3.
“The ranking framework developed in this study effectively prioritizes microbiological hazard risks and can assist risk managers in resource allocation, supporting decision-making within Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) for both industry and authorities,” said researchers.
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