Contamination of food by pathogenic microorganisms is considered to be the most important food safety issue in China. As important options of risk management, the National Food Safety Standards (NFSSs), including the criteria related to microbial pathogens, have been continuously revised over the past 10 years as required by China's Food Safety Law. This article presents an overview of current structure and roles of China's NFSSs related to microbiological contaminants throughout the whole food chain including microbiological criteria, codes of practice, and laboratory analytical methods. In addition, discussed are such challenges as the new microbiological requirements as a result of changes in eating habits and new knowledge discovered for foodborne diseases, coordination of risk surveillance, microbiological risk assessment (MRA), and development of standards, as well as the evolution of analytical technology. Future revision of NFSSs related to microbiological contaminants shall rely more on risk-based evidences from MRA and focus more on process control than mere inspections of end-product.
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