Establishment and Validation of Growth Predictive Model of Aeromonas spp.from Pork Under Different Experimental Conditions

The purpose of this paper was to study the effects of temperature, pH and inoculation level on the growth parameters of Aeromonas spp. in chilled pork under laboratory conditions. The curves generated within different conditions were fitted by Gompertz function as primary model. Then two parameters (growth rate and lag-time) of the growth curves were modeled using a quadratic polynomial equation of response surface model (RSM) as secondary model. Additional experimental conditions within the research domain were randomly selected for model validation, and mathematical testing were also applied for the developed models, including the mean square error (MSE), accuracy factor (AF) and bias factor (BF).The results indicated that modified Gompertz function could be used to model Aeromonas spp. growth under different experimental condtions (R²>0.96). Moreover, the temperature, pH and inoculation level on the growth of Aeromonas spp. were significant （P<0.05）, and RSM with lower MSE and acceptable AF and BF values provided a useful and accurate method of predicting the growth parameters of Aeromonas spp.