The prevalence and serovar diversity of Salmonella in various food products in Estonia

Abstract In this work the prevalence and serovar diversity of Salmonella in various food products including non-thermally processed food and ready-to-eat (RTE) food in Estonia in 2008–2012 are summarized. The findings demonstrate that the overall prevalence of Salmonella in these food categories was low. A total of 260 (0.54%) of 47,927 food samples were found to be positive for Salmonella , the overall prevalence in non-thermally processed food was 0.81% (256/31,576) and in RTE products only 0.02% (4/16,351). Salmonella was most often isolated from raw eggs and products thereof (2.17%, 5/230), followed by raw meat products (0.95%, 207/21,723), RTE mayonnaises (0.90%, 2/221) and raw meat (0.89%, 38/4252). In the raw meat category, Salmonella was most frequently isolated from turkey meat (6.96%, 11 positive samples out of 158), broiler chicken meat (4.00%, 7/175) and from layer hen meat (2.22%, 11/496). Salmonella was isolated in lesser extent from meat preparations (1.91%, 82/4292), minced meat and mechanically separated meat products (0.97%, 100/10,344) and from raw sausages (0.35%, 25/7087). Altogether 24 different serovars were identified among the 260 Salmonella positive samples. Salmonella Typhimurium was the most frequent serovar (26.90% of the positive samples) and it was isolated most commonly in raw food products. The next most frequent serovars were Salmonella Derby (17.50%), Salmonella Enteritidis (8.37%) and Salmonella Newport (7.57%). The only serovars isolated from the Salmonella positive RTE food samples were Salmonella Infantis (two isolates) and S . Enteritidis (two isolates).