INDICATORS OF FOOD SAFETY
Microbial indicators are employed more often to assess food
safety and sanitation than quality.
A food safety indicator should meet certain important criteria:
1. be easily and rapidly detectable
2. be easily distinguishable from other members of the food
biota
3. have a history of constant association with the pathogen
whose presence it is to indicate
4. always be present when the pathogen of concern is
present
5. be an organism whose numbers ideally should correlate
with those of the pathogen of concern
6. possess growth requirements
and a growth rate equaling or
exceeding that of the pathogen
7. have a die-off rate that at
least parallels that of the
pathogen and ideally persists
slightly longer than the
pathogen of concern
8. be absent from foods that are
free of the pathogen except
perhaps at certain minimum
numbers