Food preservation is one of the oldest practices adopted by humanity, however foodborne infections still emerge worldwide as an extremely serious public health issue, leading to the death of thousands of people every year. Thus microbiological prediction models emerge as an important tool for the assessment of food safety and the risk of foodborne infections. Microbial behavior prediction parameters provide a quick and relatively economical way of obtaining reliable estimates of the growth, inactivation and survival of microorganisms during their activity in food, according to the storage conditions. Despite the importance of prediction models, the difficulties involved in their resolution, due to the fact that they consist of non-linear equations with no analytical solution, prevent their widespread use. The limited availability of electronic programs for the analysis of microbiological data, and the lack of tools that allow for the quick and easy creation of models or the fit of parameters are other barriers to the use of microbiological growth models. Faced with this situation, the objective of this study was to describe the process of developing software designed to allow for the fit, creation and comparison of microbiological models for bacterial growth. As from the use of widely used tools for this type of study and the needs not covered by them, a free stand-alone program, was developed with an objective user interface and mechanisms capable of creating and easily evaluating predictive models. It is hoped that the software developed in this work can facilitate the analysis of the data of microbial behavior in food and the control of possible repercussions for the final consumer.
Predictive microbiological models; Foodborne infections; Software applied to microbiology
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