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Tainted mussels in global recall
Potentially lethal shellfish - 280 tonnes of it - has been exported to 11 key markets after Sanford Fisheries processed contaminated meat for more than a month.
The aquaculture industry claims the Sanford case is not likely to hit New Zealand's mussel industry, worth $182 million a year.
However, in European cases of listeria, some supermarkets have cleared shelves of cheese products from an offending country and in a French cheese case, company executives were jailed after two customers died.
Frozen Greenshell mussel meat was found to contain listeria monocytogenes by a Canadian monitoring check, and was part of about $1.5m worth of contaminated Sanford mussel exports.
Listeriosis, caused by listeria, is highly dangerous to pregnant women and has killed four unborn children since 1991 when unborn twins died in Marlborough after their mother ate smoked mussels. Six years later, two Auckland women lost their unborn babies after contracting listeriosis near full term.
Sanford is recalling all the contaminated meat, but Sanford managing director Eric Barratt said most of the mussels would have been already eaten.
So far there were no reports of illness, he said.
The contaminated meat had been coming out of Sanford's Havelock processing facility for "more than a month" before it was discovered, he said.
The recall may recover as little as 25 per cent of the contaminated mussels, bought mostly by restaurants, caterers and food service operations. About 500kg of the contaminated mussels was distributed in New Zealand.
Barratt said instructions on the packaging said the frozen meat should be cooked, which would destroy the bacteria.
It was unclear where the bacteria came from originally, but an infected roller and conveyer belt had been removed from the Havelock plant, Barratt said.
"Listeria is a difficult animal.
"It can come in on shells, on people's shoes. We're not sure how it was introduced."
Food Safety Authority spokesman Gary Bowering said it had microbiologists and other staff working with Sanford on a review of its monitoring systems.
Aquaculture New Zealand chief executive Mike Burrell said the industry was very conscious of market perceptions.
It was unlikely the incident would affect the whole industry, he said.
"Our buyers understand these things are just about one particular case."
Mussels are New Zealand's largest seafood export, earning $182 million last year.
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