Risk profiles provide background information on combinations of foods and hazards, to help risk managers in their decision-making. Risk profiling may result in a range of activities, such as immediate risk management action, quantitative risk assessment, or a programme to gather more data. This risk profile covers Listeria monocytogenes in low-moisture cheeses.

Scientific interpretive summary of report on challenge trials assessing the microbiological safety of raw milk cheeses made in New Zealand.

NZFSA (now MPI) commissioned this report to develop guidelines for conducting challenge trials relevant to manufacturing cheese from raw milk, with the intention of helping determine the safety of raw milk cheeses.

This study was undertaken at the request of the New Zealand Food Safety Authority/Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to update the raw milk cheese component of a previous study of human disease associated with raw milk and raw milk products, titled ‘A systematic review of the human disease evidence associated with the consumption of raw milk and raw milk cheeses’ (Jaros et al. 2008)

A report to determine what scientific evidence was available to support sous vide cooking of meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs.

This report proportionally attributes human cases of campylobacteriosis to reservoir sources in the Manawatu over the period January to December 2015. Modelling attributed ~50% (45–70%) of the human cases to poultry and 37% (25–50%) to ruminants, predominantly cattle. Urban cases are more associated with poultry strains and rural with ruminant. These proportions refer only to the animal reservoirs associated with strains and do not examine the pathway of exposure to Campylobacter, e.g. direct animal contact, meat from the reservoir animal, other foods, drinking or recreational, water, etc. While the predominant poultry strain (accounting for 31% of isolates) was the antimicrobial-resistant sequence type ST-6964, it was detected from only four human cases and still does not appear to present additional risks to public health.

A survey of finished animal feed to determine the prevalence of several important zoonotic foodborne pathogens.

The risk of foodborne illness in New Zealand associated with non-typhoidal Salmonella in and on eggs.

This Risk Profile (RP) considers Bacillus cereus in dairy products intended to be consumed as whole foods, including milk (raw, processed, concentrated, powder), cream, butter, yoghurt, cheese, ice cream and foods where dairy is the main ingredient (e.g. custard). The purpose of the RP is to critically review available information to answer risk management questions related to the ways of contamination and levels and behaviour of B.cereus in dairy products.

Update of a report made in 2011, with surveillance data for the 2013 year and updated estimates.

Salmonella subtypes from human and animal specimens used to estimate the importance of animal reservoirs as origins for bacteria.

This report defines the baseline of levels of contamination of sulphite-reducing clostridia (SRC) in New Zealand nutritional dairy powders. It also evaluates whether or not routine testing of dairy powders for SRCs in New Zealand, and setting of microbiological criteria, are required for regulatory assurances.

Validation of the E. coli O157 GDS method for analysis of UCFM and cooked meat samples

An investigation into the effect of milk time and temperature storage variables, together with internal mould ripening, on the survival and growth of Listeria monocytogenes during soft cheese production.

Methods for detecting viruses (norovirus and Hepatitis A) which are increasingly associated with foodborne illness are lacking for foods commonly implicated in outbreaks. This paper documents the development of a suitable method, the direct Trizol method with short column–based RNA purification. Further work to validate and establish limits of detection and reproducibility will be required before the method can be used for routine analysis.

Report of a microbiological survey of foodborne pathogens in ready-to-eat (RTE) packaged seed sprouts and shoots.