Contaminated frozen veg withdrawn from market

[Paphos Life]

Health authorities have warned the public not to eat a specific brand's frozen mixed vegetables because they are contaminated with a bacteria that causes food poisoning.The products have already been recalled and withdrawn by the company, but authorities say some packages may already be in the hands of consumers....

Read the article and chat about it below...

[Kili01]

Yes, that became news about a week ago. I think that most of the vegetables in question then were supplied by Tesco. Why use frozen veggies anyway in Cyprus ( except in an emergency) when fresh veggies are always available?

Dee

[Dominic]

Actually it was several weeks ago. The difference as you point out, is that then it was Tesco, now it is Iceland. The vegetables in question with Tesco were sweetcorn. But frozen vegetables are used in all sorts of things perfectly legitimately. They are great in smoothies for instance. Now, given that the vegetables are harmless if cooked properly, it is important that people who use frozen veg from smoothies check the labels. Some of them state they should be cooked first. I don't think people tend to use frozen sweetcorn in smoothies, though I am by no means an expert on the subject. But if they do, it could be a problem.

[mikesjn]

Here is the list of UK affected products from the UK Foods Standards Agency:

https://www.food.gov.uk/news-alerts/ale ... in-35-2018


Here is an explanation of what is suspected.

“Frozen corn and possibly other frozen vegetables are the likely source of an outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes that has been affecting Austria, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom since 2015,” says an EFSA statement.

“Experts used whole genome sequencing to identify the food source, which initially was thought to be limited to frozen corn. As of 8 June 2018, 47 cases including nine deaths had been reported.”

“The same strains of L. monocytogenes have been detected in frozen vegetables produced by the same Hungarian company in 2016, 2017 and 2018. This suggests that the strains have persisted in the processing plant despite the cleaning and disinfection procedures that were carried out.”

http://www.foodingredientsfirst.com/new ... ables.html