The Food Administration has published new guidelines for the analysis of Listeria monocytogenes (listeria) in ready-to-eat foods .
Companies that produce “ready-to-eat food” need to submit a sampling plan based on the manufacturer’s risk assessment for listeria. The risk assessment is an assessment of how likely listeria is to enter the food and then what the growth conditions of the bacterium are during the shelf life of the product. The information should be used by companies to classify the food they produce under the correct food safety criteria in terms of listeria. They are roughly divided into three main risk categories and several sub-categories.
The guidelines are intended to assist food companies in classifying their products according to the correct food safety criteria, estimating the frequency and number of samples and how to react if listeria is detected in products or processing environments.
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