Listeria monocytogenes in Norway

Abstract

This thesis is dedicated to find out the situation in Norway when it comes to Listeria monocytogenes in the food. Listeria monocytogenes is a bacterium that is naturally present in the environment around us, and can therefore easily contaminate the food we eat. There is a risk of contamination of the foodstuff all the way from the production to our own fridge. In 2013-2014 the Norwegian Food Safety Authority ran a surveillance and control program to find out how the situation was in Norway when it came to Listeria being present in ready-to-eat food. Samples were taken from 480 products in different categories and analyzed from 5th of November 2013 to 15th of February 2014.