IDG-FEM models for survival and growth of L. monocytogenes in Camembert cheese

The cumulative effect of pH and moisture content on the survival and growth of Listeria monocytogenes was studied. Experiments were conducted to determine survival and growth characteristics of L. monocytogenes during ripening of Camembert cheese. Previously developed and verified pH and moisture content models were integrated with a dynamic survival and growth model for L. monocytogenes. In all, three PC-based computational models in MATLAB environment representing three levels of spatial detail were developed for calculating L. monocytogenes population during ripening phase of Camembert cheese. The integrated dynamic growth-finite element method (IDG-FEM) models'predicted survival and growth values were in good agreement with experimental data. The R² values for the most detailed location-specific, intermediate detail region-specific, and overall section-specific IDG-FEM models were between 0.92 to 0.95, 0.99 and 0.98, and 0.98, respectively. The standard errors for three models between the experimental and predicted values varied from 0.26 to 0.54, 0.28 and 0.52, and 0.14 (CFU/g), respectively.