AIB International has added a soft cookie product profile to their lineup of Baking Process Kill Step Calculators. This breakthrough industry tool empowers bakeries to validate their food safety preventive controls and accurately evaluate Salmonella destruction in bakery products, meeting FDA’s Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA) requirement to validate and verify thermal processes to ensure product safety.

“The food industry has long believed that all biological organisms like yeast or pathogens are killed in the oven and critical product quality attributes are achieved,” says Lakshmikantha Channaiah, microbiology director, AIB International, Manhattan, KS. “Under FSMA, the FDA is requiring proof of that theory; however, prior to AIB’s latest contribution, there was not publically available research to use as foundational scientific validation.”

This is the fifth calculator developed by AIB International with others available for muffins, whole wheat bread, crisp cookies, and hamburger buns. All calculators and published research are available for free download on AIB’s website (see “Baking Process Kill Step Calculators”). Commercial bakers can use these calculators to evaluate the lethality of a thermal process (baking) to destroy Salmonella in their soft cookies and demonstrate the effectiveness of the process to comply with FSMA.

The interactive calculator works by using the oven time and temperature parameters to automatically determine the total process lethality (e.g., 5 log) for Salmonella. If the desired log reduction is achieved for the baking process and pathogen of concern, the generated report can be used as guidance and supporting documentation for FSMA’s validation and verification process.

“We are really committed to the baking industry and this is a demonstrated need as part of FSMA regulations. We are glad to be a place where the businesses can turn to for help and verification,” said Brian Strouts, vice president of baking and food technical services, AIB International.