The proposed project will be conducted as a 3-year project consisting of 6 main interrelating workpackages, which are further divided into sub-workpackages. The Workpackages correspond and systematically cover the set of objectives comprehensively outlined in the Objectives Section.

Namely in Workpackage 1 predictive models for growth of pathogens of dominant importance for specific meat products will be evaluated, improved and validated, taking into account factors as the microenvironment and structure of the food, microbial interaction, origin of contamination and dynamic environmental conditions. The overall aim of WP1 is the availability of pathogen models of high accuracy for reliable risk assessment and correlation with the TTI response.

In Workpackage 2 validated pathogen growth models will be applied to assess risk of specific meat products upon consumption. The risk assessment process will involve data on pathogen prevalence and concentration in specific meat products, dose/response effect, chill chain conditions and geographical meat consumption patterns. Most importantly this process will compare risk assessment for current practices and with the application of the safety management system, the main deliverable of this project.

In Workpackage 3 suitable TTI will be developed, response tested, modelled and validated in order to achieve the needed accuracy for safety monitoring. Innovative approaches, combining multiple signal full history TTI and partial history -critical temperature TTI will be employed.

In Workpackage 4 the TTI based intelligent management Safety Monitoring and Assurance System (SMAS) will be developed and evaluated. The principles and application potential of SMAS will be communicated to users in the chill chain- producers and retailers and feedback will exploited.

In Workpackage 5 the applicability and effectiveness of SMAS will be validated in real chill chain field studies in different European countries.

Finally, in Workpackage 6 consumers' attitude and interpretation of TTI application on meat products will be quantified.