It has been recognized that international food standards should be considered for a long time. The Codex Alimentarius programme initiated in the early 1960s has received valuable background documentation from the ICMSF (International Commission on Mic...
It has been recognized that international food standards should be considered for a long time. The Codex Alimentarius programme initiated in the early 1960s has received valuable background documentation from the ICMSF (International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods) and also from ISO(the International Organization for Standardization). There has been a considerable move towards international harmonization of standards and methods of analysis. Many foreign countries recommend the guidelines for food microbiological standards quantitatively. To complement microbiological limits and tolerance levels for permissible number of defective samples, allowances should be made for sampling and other variations in laboratory methods. It may be necessary for guidelines of domestic food microbiological standards to be established so that the domestic food standards can be harmonized with foreign food standards. Food safety related microbiological guidelines of ICMSF, EU (European Union), UK (United Kingdom), China (Hong Kong) and Japan were reviewed and shown in examples.