Table 3.

Observed and simulated distributions of L. monocytogenes counts on soft smear cheese surfaces stored at 15°C

Batch no. and cheese age (days)	Mean initial contamination (CFU surface−1)	Storage duration (days)	Approacha	No-growth probability	Contaminationb (log10 CFU surface−1)
					Mean	SD
Batch 2
5	8	21	OBS	0.50	3.7	3.29
			IBM	0.29	2.8	1.93
			POP	0.003	1.6	0.32
5	630	21	OBS	0	7.0	1.54
			IBM	0	7.2	0.65
			POP	0	3.5	0.32
12	9	13	OBS	0	8.8	0.71
			IBM	0.01	5.9 (8.5)	0.79 (1.15)
			POP	0	5.6 (7.9)	0.45 (0.62)
12	1,040	13	OBS	0	10.5	0.38
			IBM	0	8.1 (10.5)	0.46 (0.46)
			POP	0	7.6 (9.8)	0.45 (0.47)
19	24	12	OBS	0	7.7	0.67
			IBM	0	6.1 (7.8)	0.49 (0.59)
			POP	0	6.1 (7.6)	0.46 (0.57)
19	700	12	OBS	0	9.5	0.68
			IBM	0	7.6 (9.3)	0.47 (0.54)
			POP	0	7.6 (9.1)	0.46 (0.56)
Batch 3
7	21	19	OBS	0.10	6.9	2.58
			IBM	0	7.9	0.83
			POP	0	5.2	0.41
7	4,510	19	OBS	0	9.6	1.08
			IBM	0	10.5	0.49
			POP	0	7.5	0.40
12	7	11	OBS	0	8.0	1.23
			IBM	0.02	4.9 (8.0)	0.79 (1.30)
			POP	0	5.2 (8.1)	0.43 (0.64)
12	5,730	11	OBS	0	10.3	0.41
			IBM	0	8.0 (10.3)	0.42 (0.55)
			POP	0	8.1 (10.2)	0.43 (0.54)

^aOBS are observed data, IBM are data simulated with the IBM/microscale approach, and POP are data simulated with the population/macroscale approach.

^bValues in parentheses were obtained by adjusting μ_opt to values ranging from 0.30 to 0.34 h⁻¹ instead of 0.23 h⁻¹.