Hazards and critical control points in Brazilian seafood dish preparation

There are many concerns about the sanitation practices used in the preparation of the foods and the occurrence of the gastrointestinal illness affecting mainly tourists who come to Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, on vacation is common. This paper describes the hazard analysis carried out on the manufacture of four seafood dishes at a traditional restaurant in the city of Salvador. These analyses consisted of detailed studies of the manufacture process of “moqueca de peixe”, “bobó de camarão”, “mariscada” and “casquinha de siri”. The seafood dishes were usually cooked at temperatures that should have killed vegetative forms of food-borne pathogens. Hazards on CCPs were primarily associated to high counts of staphylococci TNase-coagulase positives mainly in “casquinha de siri” read to eat, held for 15 h before distribution, and detection of Escherichia coli strain producing cytotoxic necrosing factor type 1 on hands of food handlers. The control measures and monitoring procedures for seafood dish preparation are suggested.