Radiation-Sterilization of Food: Treating Scanty Data from Inoculated Packs 1

This paper is about the mathematical methods used in calculating the 12D radiation-dose for a food which has been subjected to an inoculated pack. It concerns the case in which only one partial-spoilage data point is obtained from the experiment. A simple, partly graphical procedure is described. This method is based on binomial confidence limits and furnishes an estimate that lies above the (unknown) true 12D value with probability greater than 90%. The method is applied to an inoculated pack for low-level nitrite/nitrate ham described by Anellis et al. (2).