Introduction. Ready-to-cook food products are becoming more and more popular among consumers. They have certain consumer benefits making cooking more comfortable; still, such products pose serious threats for consumer health. The basic reasons for that include the following: ready-to-cook products are made of many various components; manufacture of such products involves multiple manual operations; it is hard to observe safety requirements at production facilities; etc. Optimization of monitoring over such products seems relevant and significant since it can provide more targeted control and surveillance.

The aim of this study was to suggest possible ways to optimize monitoring over safety of ready-to-cook products based on analyzing long-term results of laboratory tests performed on such products all over the country.

Materials and methods. There was used data from the annual federal statistical observation form No. 18 “Information on the sanitary condition of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation” and data from Laboratory Support section of the Unified Information-Analytical System (UIAS) presented by the Federal Service for Supervision in Protection of the Rights of Consumer and Man Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor). Risk profiles were created for specific ready-to-cook products considering the likelihood of violations of mandatory safety requirements and severity of potential adverse health outcomes caused by these violations.

Results. We established that in general the proportion of samples that violated mandatory safety requirements equaled approximately 3.5%. Ready-to-cook food products not conforming to safety standards were detected 2.2–3.8 times more frequently at retail outlets and food providers than in educational establishments or healthcare institutions. Total bacterial contamination (TBC), coliform bacteria (CB), S. Aureus, and certain non-conforming sanitary-chemical indicators are priority health risk factors of ready-to-cook products. These are subject to mandatory laboratory control when each product sample is tested. It seems advisable to change the structure of samples taken within monitoring activities increasing proportions of analyzed samples of salads, drinks (juices), and mixed dishes (meat / fish with trimmings).

Limitations. The limitations of the study include the analyzed data set (an in-depth analysis of the results of monitoring culinary products was performed on only one region).

Conclusion. Optimization of monitoring over safety of ready-to-cook products that involves using risk profile makes control (surveillance) activities more targeted, ensures a growth in a number of detected violations and withdrawal of low-quality unsafe ready-to-good products from the market.

Compliance with ethical standards. This research has not required any approval by a local ethics committee (the research has been accomplished using public data).

Contributions: Nikiforova N.V. – the study design, data collection and analysis, writing the text; May I.V. – the study concept and design, writing and editing the text; Popova Е.V. – data collection and analysis; Kravchenko А.V. – data collection and analysis, editing the text. All authors are responsible for the integrity of all parts of the manuscript and approval of the manuscript final version.

Conflict of interest. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgement. The study had no sponsorship.

Received: September 23, 2024 / Revised: October 25, 2024 / Accepted: November 19, 2024 / Published: December 17, 2024