Development of a general model to describe Salmonella spp. growth in chicken meat subjected to different temperature profiles

Abstract The objective of this study was to develop and validate a model to predict the growth of Salmonella in chicken meat under different isothermal and dynamic temperature conditions. Three different primary and secondary models and combinations were selected from the literature and were tested against 250 isothermal and 4 dynamic growth curves. Judging with different statistical indices, the primary model of Huang was considered to provide the best fit, as evaluated by the Akaike and Bayesian Information Criteria, Mean Absolute Error, and Root Mean Square Error. Moreover, the Ratkowsky and Huang square-root models were considered to be the best secondary models to describe the experimental data, as evaluated by the Proportion of Relative Errors, Percent Discrepancy, and Percent Bias. The estimated minimum growth temperature for Salmonella was approximately 6 °C. After the validation, a few simulations were conducted to evaluate the bacterial growth in contaminated chicken meat stored in a domestic refrigerator. The results and models attained from this study may be used to perform the risk assessment studies concerning Salmonella growth in chicken meat.