New software solutions for microbiological food safety assessment and management

Abstract

Predictive microbiology and quantitative microbial risk assessment software tools for food safety assessment and management should cover the needs of a variety of target-users with different background. Current trends on software development in these fields evidence the efforts made to harmonize data formats and model annotations, which foster the interoperability between the available resources and increase transparency. Software development based on programming languages (e.g. model fitting Shiny apps) followed the increase in computational power in the last years. Databases and model repositories have facilitated users access to data and models, accounting with improved features for data analysis and visualization. Future perspectives for improving software in these fields include the integration and application of 'big data', besides a better characterizaton and quantification of uncertainty and variability to obtain more realistic predictions of microbial behaviour in foods and more informative risk assessments.