The results of the challenge test indicated that the toxigenic S. aureus P310 remained viable in the first month of storage, moreover the capacity of the isolate to follow a similar evolution
also in anaerobiosis was shown. It can be therefore underlined that high initial loads of this pathogen in such products could actually represent a risk for the formation and persistence of SEs, since the lower aw limit for their production is 0.86 (Balaban and Rasooly,
2000; Le Loir et al., 2003).