Remote monitoring of contaminant reduction in ingestible products

A method for determining a reduction of a pathogen within a food product being treated, the method comprising:

• receiving, by a computing system, over a network, from a gateway device within a facility where the food product is being treated, and during heat treatment of the food product, a series of messages containing data associated with the heat treatment of the food product, wherein the data comprises at least temperature data and time data, and wherein the series of messages are associated with a sequence that corresponds to at least one of the heat treatment of the food product or a stage of the heat treatment;
• determining, by the computing system receiving an end message in the series of messages, that an end of the sequence has been reached;
• in response to the determining that the end of the sequence has been reached:
• generating, by the computing system, a dataset for the sequence based at least in part on the data;
• and
• based at least in part on analyzing the dataset to identify a type of the food product, a program used to treat the food product, or equipment being used to treat the food product, selecting, by the computing system, a set of model parameters from multiple available model parameters, the set of model parameters comprising a first value representing a reference temperature, a second value representing a number of degrees of a Thermal Death Time (TDT) curve to traverse 1 log cycle, and a third value representing a number of minutes for 1-log reduction of a microbial population at the reference temperature;
• determining, by the computing system, based at least in part on a measured temperature extracted from the temperature data and a measured time extracted from the time data, and using a mathematical model that defines one or more equations including the set of model parameters, a log reduction value associated with the food product with respect to the pathogen;
• classifying, by the computing system, based at least in part on the log reduction value, the food product as safe with respect to the pathogen;
• sending, by the computing system, over the network, to the gateway device, an instruction to cause a programmable logic controller (PLC) involved in the heat treatment of the food product to stop the heat treatment;
• and
• causing, by the gateway device, based at least in part on the instruction, the PLC to stop the heat treatment by controlling a temperature inside a sterilizer tank containing the food product.