OBJECTIVE(S) The preservation of food quality during food processing is a key condition for food industries to remain competitive and respond to consumer demand. For that purpose, food industry must mediate among two objectives: preserve the nutritional benefits and ensure a high level of microbiological risk control. . The aim of this study is to develop a user friendly probabilistic tool able to assess quantitatively the risk and benefit of heat processed foods. The tool allows to appraise the risk (food spoilage) associated to survival Geobacillus Stearothermophilus and the benefit related to Vitamin C. In the end it proposes the best compromise to preserve vitamins and to control the microbiological risk of food. METHODS(S) The industrial risk considered in this study was that of the thermophilic bacterium Geobacillus stearothermophilus, recognized as a major source of spoilage in canned foods and frequently detected in cans presenting defects after 7-day incubation at 55°C (André et al., 2012). G. stearothermophilus heat resistance parameters (Dref, ZT and ZpH), used in this study, were estimated using hierarchical Bayesian modeling (Rigaux et al., 2012). Furthermore, nutritional benefit was that of vitamine C. The two bioactive forms of vitamin C were taken into account: DeHydroascorbic Acid (DHA) and Ascorbic Acid (AA). For both cases, activation Energy (Ea) and reaction rate (K) were considered. Monte Carlo based simulations were used in order to set up the destruction of G. Stearothermophilus and both AA and DHA of vitamin C (Rigaux et al., 2013). RESULTS The decision making tool developed in this study allows to quantify the risk due to G. stearothermophilus and displays the distribution based Monte-Carlo simulation of the decimal reduction number of the considered bacteria. The distribution is given with a target level user-defined. The probability to reach this known threshold is also calculated. At the same time, the tool displays the distribution based Monte-Carlo simulation of the vitamin C percentage reduction ([AA] and [DHA] concentrations). This distribution is given also with a user-specified allegation threshold for vitamin C. The probability to reach the allegation threshold is also given. Color codes are used to help users to decide on the risk-benefit compromise associated to a given heat processed food. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY A user friendly risk-benefit based probabilistic assessment tool for heat processed foods was developed in this study. The software allows to accurately evaluate and find the best compromise between nutritional quality and microbiological safety for heat processed food products. Monte-Carlo simulation method was performed in order to estimate the probability to reach both user-defined target levels of bacteria and allegation threshold of vitamin C. This statistical tool could have a significant industrial impact to better assess temperature profiles applied during heat processing, because not only a microbiological risk is put forth but also the nutritional benefit. This tool will be integrated to the heat inactivation module of Sym’Previus.