The two assayed models were statistically acceptable and fitted the experimental data of specific growth rate temperatures while, for the prediction performance, the root square model was better than Arrhenius model. These results agree with those of Stannard et al. (1985), who reported that the square root equation better described microbial growth of psychotropic food spoilage as a function of temperature when compared with simple Arrhenius equation, this being attributed to the fact that Arrhenius equation was originally proposed to describe the temperature dependence of the specific reaction rate constant in chemical reactions and does not adequately describe the effect of temperature on bacterial growth. On the other hand, Phillips and Griffiths (1987) also preferred square root equation to predict the effects of temperature on psychotropic growth in dairy products. The Arrhenius equation did not fit the data as well, presumably because the activation energy was dependent of the specific bacterial strains.