title: Prevalence and contamination levels of Listeria monocytogenes in retail foods in Japan.
abstract: Retail foods in Japan were surveyed for the presence and contamination levels of L. monocytogenes. It was isolated from 12.2, 20.6, 37.0 and 25.0% of 41 minced beef, 34 minced pork, 46 minced chicken and 16 minced pork-beef mixture samples, respectively. MPN values were higher than 100/g in five (10.9%) minced chicken samples, but lower than 100/g in all minced beef, pork and pork-beef mixture samples. The organism was also isolated from 5.4% of the 92 smoked salmon samples at MPN values lower than 10/g, and from 3.3% of 213 ready-to-eat raw seafood samples at MPN values from lower than 0.3 to higher than 100/g. None of the 285 vegetable samples were contaminated with L. monocytogenes. These findings indicate that ready-to-eat raw seafoods are relatively high risk among the foods surveyed in this study.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Inoue
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nakama
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Arai
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kokubo
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Maruyama
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saito
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Terao
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yamamoto
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kumagai
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D002645:Chickens; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D005399:Fishes / Q000382:microbiology; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D005516:Food Microbiology; D007564:Japan; D008089:Listeria monocytogenes / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008461:Meat Products / Q000382:microbiology; D015995:Prevalence; D017747:Seafood / Q000382:microbiology; D012758:Shellfish / Q000382:microbiology; D013552:Swine