Microbiological quality of Icelandic cooked-peeled shrimp (Pandalus borealis)

Iceland is a major producer of cold water shrimp, Pandalus borealis. In rec ent years considerable attention has been given to improve hygiene in the f actories producing cooked, peeled and frozen shrimp. To keep track of the b acteriological status of the end product, shrimp from most of the factories is routinely analysed bacteriologically by the request of shrimp exporters . This paper reports on the results of a bacteriological analysis of 7913 s amples of shrimp from 26 Icelandic factories over a 6-year period. The resu lts showed that the geometric mean of APC (at 35 degrees C) was 1718 per g and 57% of the samples had APC under 1000 per g. Some 70% of the samples ha d less than one coliform per g and 99.9% of the samples had less than one f aecal coliform per g. Staphylococcus aureus was detected in less than 0.2% of the samples. The results show improvement in bacterial profiles, mainly total coliforms, over the 6-year period. Overall, the results show acceptab le bacterial numbers in the finished product, indicating a high level of hy giene. Listeria spp. were, however, found in 270 of 3331 samples examined o r 8.1%. Species identification was done on 49 of the 270 positive samples. The proportion of L. monocytogenes was found to be 26.5%. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V: All rights reserved.