5. Conclusions
The results for the aerobic colony count, especially for sandwiches,
desserts with dairy cream and frozen pastries, indicate that
the general principles of good manufacturing programs and food
hygiene as well as the temperature control should be enforced.
Maintenance of correct refrigeration is fundamental for the safety
of RTE foods. The microbiological quality of frozen pastries (readyto-bake)
is of great importance, as the heat treatment applied to the
products may not eliminate the microbial contamination when
defrosting is not thorough. The results of the present study, can
provide valuable information for the design of monitoring and
surveillance programs for the official food microbiological control.
Although the production of safe food is the responsibility of the
producer, there is a need to verify and validate through inspection
and end-product testing both at the site of production and at the
point of sale. RTE foods should be sold to the consumer as bacteriologically
safe products.
Acknowledgments
The Aristotle University Property Development and Management
Company financially supported this work. The author would
like to thank the following people for their contribution to this
study: Evangelia Doua, Theano Lefkou, Fani Mantzouridou, Konstantina
Nanou, Dimitra Papaliaga, Theodora Pragalaki, who collected
samples for this study and performed the microbiological
examination of samples. Thanks are also extended to Evangelia
Doua for entering the data.