The Norwegian Food Safety Authority has asked Lerøy to notify the next link in the food chain if listeria is found. The situation at the slaughterhouse must be unchanged since the previous detections.
In 2022, seven Swedes died in connection with an outbreak of listeria. Smoked and grilled salmon from Lerøy Smögen Seafood was the source, and the Swedes’ investigations indicate that the infection originates from Lerøy Midt’s slaughterhouse. Here, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority has recently notified about 700 listeria detections in the production environment over the course of 15 months.
Also read: NRK: Listeria detected over 700 times at Lerøy Midt’s salmon packing plant
According to NRK even more cases have now been discovered at the slaughterhouse on Jøsnøya. In a new report, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority refers to the discovery of the bacteria in both the butchery and the filleting department.
Unchanged situation
According to the report, the situation at the slaughterhouse is roughly the same as in 2022:
The report claims that test results show detections on the same equipment on subsequent days and over time, and that the state of the production environment from autumn 2022 to now has not changed to a significant extent. “This indicates that you do not have measures that reset the facility from day to day”, writes the Norwegian Food Safety Authority.
– The latest findings help to confirm that Lerøy Midt has a house strain of listeria bacteria, says head of department Ivar Eiken in the Norwegian Food Safety Authority to the state channel.
Must notify further
Anne-Hilde Midttveit, head of quality and social responsibility in Lerøy, points out that the type of listeria that has been detected is common in the environment around us and in industry in general.
Anne-Hilde Midttveit. Photo: Lerøy
– It is therefore not surprising that this strain has also been detected elsewhere and may re-enter the factory. We have always said that our slaughterhouse on Jøsnøya could be one possible source. But it has not been determined where the outbreak in Smögen originated, she tells NRK.
The report from the Norwegian Food Safety Authority also contains a decision that Lerøy must notify the next link in the food chain when listeria is found. This could, for example, be players who make smoked or grilled salmon.
– Food safety has the highest priority in Lerøy. We have therefore already implemented what is in the decision from the Norwegian Food Safety Authority at our operations on Jøsnøya, says Midttveit.