Understanding and modelling bacterial transfer to foods: a review

Bacterial transfer events are considered to be an important cause of transmission of food-borne diseases. In this review the most common ways of bacterial transfer to food are studied, concluding that high levels of moisture, contact time and pressure could result in higher transfer between surfaces. From a risk management approach, this means that the identification and elimination of certain tasks or activities involving higher levels of these factors could be helpful to prevent bacterial transfer. Besides, mathematical bacterial transfer models from literature are analysed, highlighting the use of transfer rates distributions to model bacterial transfer in a probabilistic Quantitative Microbiological Risk Assessment (QMRA) framework.