[Problems of maintaining hygienic and microbiological quality standards in the production of foodstuffs, particularly those of vegetable origin. Second report: Demands regarding hygiene and microbiology-theory is useless without practice (author's transl)].

Abstract

Many legal regulations exist on the hygienic-microbiological properties of food products. The 'Länder-Speiseeisverordnungen' (County Ice Cream Regulations), the 'Diät-Verordnung' (Dietary Regulation) and the 'Trinkwasser-Verordnung' (Regulation on Potable Water) are examples for the frequent inadequacies inherent in these regulations. Caution is indicated against any new proposals for the establishment of additional hygienic-microbiological regulations without sufficient practice-related reasoning unless a revision and improvement of inadequate, already existing regulations has been carried out. Practicable procedures have to be prepared not only to maintain the hygiene in Catering facilities, but also for the evaluation of food products and raw materials according to hygienic-microbiological criteria: Although commonly assumed, the 'Microbe Counts' alone are not sufficient for the determination of the hygienic conditions. Therefore, inspite of all the weak points inherent in quality control procedures - e. g. possible sick, co-workers, only random sample control of raw material supplies - such adapted systems (good manufacturing practice) have to be enforced with special emphasis on the economy of the control expenditure, interdisciplinary aspects, governmental control and consumer information. Examples from literature and own experience demonstrate that the importance of the 'Fecal Indicators' for the judgement of 'hygienic conditions' in food production are rather limited and a correct evaluation only by 'Bacterial Plate Counts' is not possible due to the variation of germ density within one sample. Microbiological investigations of food products according to statistic rules require such an expenditure that they cannot generally be used as routine control procedures. A possible documentation is shown which allows - even without statistic investigations, at least retrospectively - the preparation of a survey on the microbiological properties of raw materials generally available on the market and which makes it possible to recognize and reject any unqualified microbiological limiting value requirements.