The Industry Listeria Group has challenged Campden BRI’s Guideline 81: “Demonstrating control of listeria in ready to eat (RTE) foods. Listeria control: how should you approach it?”. Whilst some ILG members were part of the recent review which started prior to lockdown, Campden now acknowledge that some component parts are inaccurate and the final document displays an uneven balance in the emphasis of other parts. As CFA Director General, Karin Goodburn, explains: “This document, despite its title, does not cover the whole process of demonstrating control of Listeria. Instead, it focusses more on claimed advantages of challenge testing compared to both durability studies and predictive modelling, which are standard proven effective approaches. We have written to Campden critiquing Guideline 81 as it is incorrect in terms of legal requirements regarding criteria 1.2 of EU 2073/2005, it misrepresents obligations on food businesses with respect to shelf life and ignores established best practice in terms of food and environmental sampling and use of data, heavily promotes challenge testing as the only means of establishing shelf life and is potentially dangerous in other respects.”
Campden BRI has reviewed the comments and have agreed to remove the original document from its website, at CFA’s request. Work continues with the aim of arriving at a legally valid, useful and practicable document.
October 2022