Lerøy products in second listeria scare

The Lerøy Seafood Company has been hit by two listeria scares involving salmon products, with outbreaks in Norway and Sweden.

In the most recent, Lerøy’s salmon and game supply arm Laks & Vilt (Salmon & Game) in Oslo is withdrawing a batch of salmon gravlax with a latest consumption date of 8 December.

The reason is the discovery of the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes in the product, says the Norwegian Food Safety Authority.

In most cases, the product was sold in bulk, which means  the packaging can vary from store to store.

Listeria was detected in one of five control samples taken by the manufacturer.

Laks & Vilt has asked  consumers who have bought the affected products to dispose of them carefully.

Last week the Swedish Food Agency reported that several Swedish nationals have been infected with listeriosis over the past year and the authorities had traced some of the cases to a salmon smokehouse in Smögen, Sweden, owned by Lerøy.

Lerøy said in a press release that it had introduced a number of measures and the outbreak had now stopped.

The company added: “For Lerøy, producing safe and healthy food is the most important thing we do.

“That is why we take food safety very seriously. After we received a notification from the Swedish Food Agency in July suspecting Listeria in our smoked products from the facility in Smögen, we have worked intensively on the matter in collaboration with the Swedish authorities.”

Listeria is generally not serious in the young and  healthy but it  can cause serious problems for  the elderly, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems.

Listeria can grow at low temperatures, and in foods with a long shelf life it can grow to a high number of bacteria. The bacterium survives freezing.