INTRODUCTION

Changing lifestyles mean that more and more people are spending less time on food preparation, even though they still want to enjoy a wide variety of high quality meals. As a result, ready meals and convenience foods are now among the fastest growing sectors of the food industry. To meet this demand, manufacturers have increased the range of available products and improved their quality. Products are expected to have a flavor, texture and appearance similar to that of home-cooked meals, whilst requiring little time and effort to prepare. Eating habits of the 21st century have evolved to accommodate the growing importance of work and leisure, and the subsequent move away from rigorous housekeeping and domestic native (Mintel) Ready ambient meals are manufactured outside the home for purchase. Advanced technologies have also come to change food manufacture. Computer- based control system, sophisticated processing and packaging methods and logistics and distribution advances can enhance product quality improve food safety, and reduce costs. The demand for ambient meals is increasing world-wide due to rapid urbanization and change in socio-economic status. Development of safe, shelf-stable foods at ambient temperature is necessary to control the effects of manufacturing process on the properties of the food preserve and quality. In canned food growth of the bacteria clostridium botulinum may cause botulism deadly form of food poisoning. These bacteria exist either as spores or as vegetative cells. The spores, which are comparable to plant seeds, can survive harmlessly in soil and water for many years. When ideal conditions exist for growth, the spores produce vegetative cells which multiply rapidly and may produce a deadly toxin within three to four days of growth in an environment. It will survive in moist, low acid food, a temperature between 40c and 490c and less 2 percent of oxygen. Botilinum spores are very hard to destroy at boiling temperature, the higher the canner temperature; the more easily they are destroyed. Therefore, all low acid foods should be sterilized at temperature of 116 0c to 1210c. (www.foodsafety.gov.nz_)

Whether food should be processed in a pressure canner or boiling water canner to control botulinum bacteria depends on the acidity in the food. Acidity may be natural, as in most fruits, or added, as in pickled food. Low-acid canned food contains too little acidity to prevent the growth of these bacteria. Low acid food have pH values higher than 4.6. The acidity level in foods can be increased by lemon juice, citric acid or vinegar. Although tomatoes usually considered an acidic food. Properly acidified tomatoes can be safely processed in a boiling water canner.

Among meat derivatives, dry fermented sausages are ready to eat products, whose safety is essentially gained by decrease of water activity to below the growth limit of most pathogens, and pH fall, enabling more efficacy bacterial control in a hurdle technology concept. While lower water activity (a w) is reached by the combined effects of salt uptake and meat shrinkage during ripening, pH decrease results from the primary process of microbial fermentation. Dry and semi-dry fermented sausages are generally regarded as shelf-stable, safe meat products and they have rarely been implicated in food poisoning. A reason for this might be that during drying and ripening any pathogens, if present are likely inhibited, while at combined aw and pH values of the end product pathogenic bacteria can not grow even at ambient temperature. Although processing techniques generally used with pathogen control, there is evidence that raw materials are still a major source of bacterial contamination, and current sanitation and cleaning procedures may fail to prevent such pathogens as listeria monocytogens and salmonella from entering the production line. To increase safety, efforts are being made by modifying the process to ensure lower aw extended ripening or reduced pH use of acidifying starter bacteria, substances with antibacterial effect organic acids, such as bacteriocins. However, such approach has to be carefully investigated for possible adverse effects on the sensory properties of end product. The pH of raw meats is an additional factor capable of affecting the final pH value, and sausages made from high pH meat are more likely to result in lower acidity as happens with Dark firm and dry pork meat. This is also the case with sausages made only with specified cuts, such as shoulders, whose pH may be greater than values found in other carcass cuts. For example leg trimmings. Additional causes for variation in pH can be described to inadequate control of the drying process, where the onset of an external crust as result of excessive drying is likely to result in abnormally high external pH compared with values in the sausages core. (Barbuti, S.et al 2002 ) To get rid of undesired changes of pH and more important, minimize the occurrence of abnormally high pH values, procedures have increasingly practiced addition of commercial lactic bacteria starter cultures plus simple sugars such as dextrose that promote lactic acid bacterial growth by serving as a fuel. The use of started cultures is critical to successful sausage fermentation. Due to auto sterilization hurdle technology foods, which are microbiologically stable, become safer during storage, especially at ambient temperatures. For example, salmonellae that survive the ripening process in fermented

sausages will vanish more quickly if the products are stored at ambient temperature, and they will survive longer and possibly cause food borne illness if the products are stored under refrigeration (Leistner, 1995) Mayonnaise or salad dressing is one of the main ingredients used in the preparation of deli salads. According to the Standard of identity classification of the U.S. food and drug administration, mayonnaise must contain 65 % oil and 0.25 % acetic acid and be produced by using egg as an emulsifier, and with a final pH 4.1. Mayonnaise made with unpasteurized eggs must have a final pH 4.1. and contain 1.4 % acetic acid in the aqueous phase. The survival of pathogens in mayonnaise and salad dressing indicated that food borne pathogens die off at various rates, depending on the organism. For example e-coli 0157: died off slower than other pathogens, acid type and concentration, storage temperature, organism adoptability and pH. In addition to the acidity the presence of lysozyme in mayonnaise made with whole eggs may have antimicrobial substances in egg whites on inactivating Salmonella in mayonnaise and salad dressing. It indicates that mayonnaise does not contain infectious doses of pathogenic microorganisms during their shelf-life. Microbial contamination of the products could occur if unpasteurized eggs are used and good manufacturing practice is not properly followed. The contaminated microorganisms could survive or even multiply in the products if there is an in sufficient quantity of acids in the products to inhibit or inactivate the microorganism. The presence of pathogenic micro-organism in these products could cause food safety concerns. Therefore mayonnaise or salad dressing should be prepared and processing according to the guidelines and good manufacturing practice.(www.fda.gov) During the processing of mayonnaise and salad dressing, good manufacturing, sanitation and product handling practices must be followed to minimize cross-contamination. Salami and dry fermented meat products are very traditional products based on manufacturing process that can be hardly modified without adversely affecting the qualities of end-products. The preserving factors inherently involved in technical process should be thoroughly known and practiced in order to achieve the fundamental goal of microbiological safety. The effects of the process on the inhibition of pathogenic bacteria suggest that such factors as pH reduction, generation of lactic and organic acids, moisture loss, aw decrease and competitive microflora play a major role in the control of undesired bacteria. In the process of canning right temperature and proper sterilization must be considered to avoid the danger of clostridium botulinum.

FIG. 1. Log spore counts (N) of C. botulinum TMW 2.357 spores after combined pressure/temperature treatments with isothermal holding times in THB (pH 5.15). Spore counts are depicted relative to the spore counts of untreated samples (N0). (A) 70C; (B) 80C; (C) 90C; (D) 100C; (E) 110C; (F) 120C. The pressure level was 600 MPa (), 800 MPa ( ), 1,100 MPa ( ), 1,200 MPa ( ), 1,400 MPa ( the detection limit [log(N/N0) = 6.5]. ), or 0.1 MPa ( ), 900 MPa ( ), 1,000 MPa ( ). Lines dropping below the x axis indicate spore counts below