Update of concepts in food microbiology education in Slovakia: from food microbiology to predictive microbiology and microbiological risk assessment in foods

To implement food-oriented theoretical knowledge and skills in practice, mutual knowledge exchanges, communications and cooperation among professionals are needed for the sake of final product quality and safety. Identical principles should be applied generally in university education regardless of the type of school. However, the specifics of food studies exist at technical universities, especially those with a chemical and technological background. These are achieved by controlling the chemical, physical, biochemical processes as well as the skills needed in the production as well as in the evaluation of food quality and safety. Therefore, their approaches have to be process-oriented, preventive and, in critical cases, they must provide solutions by applying reverse knowledge from scientific literature, past microbiological observations, trends of microbial loads and from actual situations in the food chain. Thus in food microbiology, a shift from descriptive qualitative toward quantitative approaches enables graduates to predict the behaviour of microorganisms and assess the potential risks resulting from growth, survival and contamination.