title: Salmonella in meats, water, fruit and vegetables as disclosed from testing undertaken by Food Business Operators in Ireland from 2005 to 2009.
abstract: Food Business Operators (FBO) are responsible for the safety of the food they produce and in Ireland those under the regulatory control of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine are required to provide summary data on microbiological tests undertaken as part of their food safety controls. These data are provided to the National Reference Laboratory through the 25 private laboratories undertaking the testing.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Over the five-year period Salmonella sp. was isolated from 0.7% of the 254,000 raw meat or raw meat products tested with the annual prevalence ranging from 0.5 to 1.1%. Poultry meats were consistently more contaminated than other meats with higher recovery rates in turkey (3.3%), duck (3.3%), and chicken (2.5%) compared with meats of porcine (1.6%), ovine (0.2%) and bovine origin (0.1%). Salmonella sp. was also isolated from 58 (0.06%) of the 96,115 cooked or partially cooked meat and meat products tested during the reporting period with the annual percentage positive samples ranging from 0.01 to 0.16%. A total of 50 different serotypes were recovered from raw meats over this period with the greatest diversity found in poultry samples (n = 36). Four serotypes, Kentucky, Typhimurium, Agona and Derby accounted for over 70% of all isolates detected on FBO testing over the period 2005 to 2009.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Capturing microbiological data generated by Food Business Operators allows the regulatory sector access to a substantial amount of valuable data with the minimum financial outlay.
authors.affiliation: National Reference Laboratory Salmonella, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine Laboratories, Backweston, Celbridge, Co, Kildare. john.egan@agriculture.gov.ie.
authors.forename: Sharon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Duggan
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jordan
authors.forename: Montserrat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gutierrez
authors.forename: Gaye
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Barrett
authors.forename: Tony
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: O'Brien
authors.forename: Darren
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hand
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kenny
authors.forename: June
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fanning
authors.forename: Nola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Leonard
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Egan