Microbiological safety of nuts and seeds: new guidance from Campden BRI

There have been a number of food safety incidents in recent years involving pathogens such as Salmonella, which have been found on low moisture foods such as nuts and seeds. These have highlighted the potential for contamination and microbiological survival: the presence of even low numbers of bacteria still poses a health risk.

Guidelines to the principles of assuring the microbiological safety of low moisture foods such as nuts and seeds (Campden BRI Guideline 73) (see www.campdenbri.co.uk/publications/pubDetails.php?pubsID=4641) highlights the main sources of contamination, good manufacturing practices to minimise the risks of contamination, the principles of validation of decontamination procedures, and processes and controls to prevent recontamination. The key stages of pasteurisation protocol evaluation are explained, and guidance is given on demonstrating the validity of manufacturing steps to third party auditing bodies.