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

Iceland is a major producer of cold water shrimp, Pandalus borealis. In recent years considerable attention has been given to improve hygiene in the factories producing cooked, peeled and frozen shrimp. To keep track of the bacteriological 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 samples of shrimp from 26 Icelandic factories over a 6-year period. The results showed that the geometric mean of APC (at 35°C) was 1718 per g and 57% of the samples had APC under 1000 per g. Some 70% of the samples had less than one coliform per g and 99.9% of the samples had less than one faecal 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 acceptable bacterial numbers in the finished product, indicating a high level of hygiene. Listeria spp. were, however, found in 270 of 3331 samples examined or 8.1%. Species identification was done on 49 of the 270 positive samples. The proportion of L. monocytogenes was found to be 26.5%.