Machine Learning Prediction of Leuconostoc spp. Growth Inducing Spoilage in Cooked Deli Foods Considering the Effect of Glycine and Sodium Acetate

To control spoilage by lactic acid bacteria (Leuconostoc spp.) in cooked deli food, various combinations of environmental and/or intrinsic factors have been employed based on hurdle technology. Since many factors and their combinations greatly influence Leuconostoc spp. growth, this study aimed to develop a machine learning model based on the experimentally obtained growth kinetic data using extreme gradient boosting tree algorithm to quantitatively and flexibly predict Leuconostoc spp. growth. In particular, the effects of sodium acetate (0–1.5%) and glycine (0–1.5%), which are frequently used food additives in the Japanese food industry, on the growth of Leuconostoc spp. in cooked deli foods were examined with a combination of temperature (5–25 °C) and pH (5.0–6.0) conditions. The developed machine learning model to predict the number of Leuconostoc spp. over time successfully demonstrates comparable accuracy in culture media to the conventional Baranyi model-based prediction. Furthermore, while the accuracy of the prediction by the machine learning model for cooked deli foods such as potato salad, Japanese simmered hijiki, and unohana evaluated by the proportion of relative error within the acceptable prediction range was 98%, the accuracy of the conventional Baranyi model-based prediction was 89%. The developed machine learning model successfully and flexibly predicted the growth of Leuconostoc spp. in various cooked deli foods incorporating the effect of food additives, with an accuracy comparable to or better than that of the conventional kinetic-based model.