title: Prevalence and typing of Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat food products on the Belgian market.
abstract: Listeria monocytogenes is a major concern to producers of ready-to-eat foods because of the high mortality rate associated with listeriosis and the widespread nature of the organism. To investigate the prevalence of this pathogen in different ready-to-eat food products on the Belgian market, a variety of 252 ready-to-eat food products, mainly fish and meat products, were analyzed. Overall, L. monocytogenes was detected in 23.4% of the samples. The highest prevalence of L. monocytogenes was found in prepared minced meat (42.1%) and smoked halibut (33.3%). Contamination levels were in most cases low (<10 CFU/g); however, levels higher than 100 CFU/g were detected in some samples of smoked salmon, smoked halibut, and prepared minced meat. A high prevalence of Listeria innocua (15.8%) and Listeria welshimeri (36.8%) was detected in prepared minced meat. L. monocytogenes strains isolated from different contaminated products were subjected to repetitive element sequence-based PCR (REP-PCR) typing to determine possible associations with product type, producer, or market. REP-PCR patterns were analyzed using BioNumerics software, and seven different groups with at least 90% similarity were identified. The cluster analysis indicates that cross-contamination occurred at the producer and retail level. Serotype identification of the strains by PCR revealed that most belonged to the 1/2a(3a) serotype group.
authors.affiliation: Ministry of the Flemish Community, Agricultural Research Centre Ghent (CLO), Department Animal Product Quality and Transformation Technology (DVK), Brusselsesteenweg 370, B-9090 Melle, Belgium. e.vancoillie@clo.fgov.be
authors.forename: Els
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Van Coillie
authors.forename: Hadewig
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Werbrouck
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Heyndrickx
authors.forename: Lieve
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Herman
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rijpens
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001530:Belgium / Q000453:epidemiology; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D005396:Fish Products / Q000382:microbiology; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D005516:Food Microbiology; D008087:Listeria / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008089:Listeria monocytogenes / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008088:Listeriosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D008461:Meat Products / Q000382:microbiology*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D015995:Prevalence; D012703:Serotyping