m ¼ e^(22.5 þ 0.532*Tþ4.11*pH-4.4*bw-0.0218*T*pH-0.0053*T*T-
0.25*pH*pH)
where m is the growth rate of S. aureus (log CFU/mL), T is temperature
(C), bw ¼ √(1eaw), aw is water activity.
We assumed milk was distributed in two ways. In most cases,
raw milk is sent to a dairy processing plant, while a small fraction is
sent for retail sale direct to consumers, especially in remote rural
areas of China. Thermal inactivation was calculated by a log linear
D/z approach for S. aureus proposed by Van Asselt and Zwietering
(2006). A normal distribution was used for the logarithm of the
D-values to account for strain variability, while the Poisson distribution
was used to model the inactivation, which was used as