A computerized procedure was developed for estimating the variability of process lethality when there were variations in all independent, thermal process parameters of conduction heating food packages. This was accomplished through the combined application of a Monte Carlo procedure and a reliable mathematical method for thermal process evaluation. By examining published information, statistical variations in physical and reaction kinetic parameters were represented by gamma distributions and others by normal distributions. The coefficients of variations in sterilizing values were estimated from temperature data collected by processing 211 x 300 and 307 x 409 cans of spaghetti in tomato sauce (60 cans each). They agreed well with those computed by the developed computerized procedure.

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