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F. F. BUSTA, Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Minnesota, 1334 Eckles Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55108 and D. R. HELDMAN, Food Science Department, Rutgers University, 65 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8520.

A significant effort has been devoted to find alternative processing methods that provide a high quality food product as well as ensure its microbiological safety. FDA, aware of the increasing attention to these technologies, is greatly interested in the scientific data supporting their microbiological safety. As part of an IFT 5-year contract with FDA, Task Order Number 1 entitled "How to quantify the destruction kinetics of alternative process technologies" was developed. A panel of engineering and microbiology experts was assembled and assigned the task of reviewing the current knowledge and potential of the technologies. The main issues to be addressed for each of the promising technologies were:1) an in-depth review of technologies and critical control factors; 2) an in-depth review of the pathogens of concern resistant to specific technologies; 3) a review of models and methods of quantifying the microbial destruction rate; 4) a review of methods of process validation(indicator organisms, physical measurements); and 5) a review of methods to handle and assess process deviations. After completion of this review, it has become apparent that there is great potential for the use of these technologies but a significant amount of research remains to be done. For example, research on designing more efficient and inexpensive equipment and detection methods for process deviations needs to continue if industrial processes are to be implemented. A more complete body of knowledge is needed on the identification and influence of critical factors on the destruction kinetics and prediction models of specific pathogens. Before describing our findings for each technology, we will discuss the models and kinetics parameters that can be used to compare microbial inactivation data. For these purposes and because models are based on the inactivation mechanisms, they will be divided into thermal, pressure, and electromagnetic processes.