摘要：Legislation on food safety has led towards the standardization of food productions which, together with the existing quality certifications, aim to increase the level of protection of public health It is recognized the need for the agrifood industry to have tools to harmonize their productions and to adequately manage their quality systems in order to improve consumers’ confidence The implementation of microbiological criteria is focused on facilitating this harmonization by enabling the discrimination of defective lots and acting as control tools at industrial level Therefore, knowledge of the principles, components and factors influencing the efficiency of microbiological criteria may be helpful to better understand the consequences of their application In the present study the main principles, methodologies and applications of microbiological criteria in foods are addressed for their implementation as a part of the management quality systems of agrifood industries In addition, potential limitations and impact of microbiological criteria on food safety are discussed Finally, an assessment of the performance of microbiological criteria at EU level in berries is described for the compliance of the socalled riskbased metrics, namely Performance Objectives and Food Safety Objectives.
