Behaviour of spoilage microorganisms on DREAM model foods: the case of the spoiler Bacillus amyloliquefaciens in bread.

Bacterial contamination of foods reduces their shelf-life due to microbial metabolic activity. The presence of Bacillus spp. spores in cereal products plays a key role in the development of "bread rope" and represents a real concern for industrial production. To quantitatively predict the contamination risk, it is essential to determine kinetic data of the microorganism contaminating a specific food. Enterprises find difficult to perform experimental trials, and predictive tools can assist product and/or process development reducing laboratory experiments. Within the WP6 "Model food applicability", studies were performed to obtain information on food safety and quality when the WP2-5 models were challenged by pathogens and spoilers. The objective of this study was to obtain experimental data taking into account all the food/microorganism characteristics affecting bacterial growth. Particularly, we determined the growth/no growth boundaries and the behaviour of a selected Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain in the bread model.