Introduction
Cooked chilled foods (also known as REPFEDs, Refrigerated Processed Foods of Extended Durability) are becoming increasingly popular in Europe. They are generally processed with a mild heat treatment and stored at refrigeration temperatures (2–4 °C) for shelf-lives ranging from a few days to three months. Products based on vegetables account for an important part of REPFEDs, either as recipe dishes intended for the retail market or as pre-cooked ingredients intended for caterers or the food industry. The mild heat treatment kills vegetative forms of micro-organisms, but is not severe enough to kill bacterial spores. Among spore-forming bacteria, Bacillus cereus has been responsible for food poisoning ( Granum 1997) and has been frequently isolated from raw and processed food products such as rice, milk and dairy products, spices, vegetables ( Roberts et al. 1982 ), meat products and farinaceous foods ( Kramer and Gilbert 1989). Some strains of B. cereus are able to grow at 5 or 7 °C ( van Netten et al. 1990; Dufrenne et al. 1994 ) and could be of concern in refrigerated, pasteurized foods. The aim of this work was to determine the prevalence of B. cereus in two different type of REPFEDs based on vegetables, and to characterize the population of B. cereus found in the products with respect to food processing and food safety.