Preventing Listeria in Seafood Processing Plants
Where to begin in the search to identify this persistent threat to your facility
- Insights
- December 28, 2022
![Magnifying glass revealing Listeria on a salmon filet](https://assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com:443/19eb64b5-1815-003a-d268-e7109927ccad/fe11d6f1-8980-4cba-9f7b-265d407866c9/Listeria_Salmon_40-21.jpg?w=750&h=&rect=0,0,4877,2552&fit=&q=85&auto=format)
“Every night, there’s an army of bacteria that want to come into your plant, and probably do.”
Joe Stout—Commercial Food Sanitation Founder and Senior Advisor—knows how prevalent and dangerous Listeria monocytogenes can be for seafood processing facilities.
Manufacturers of every fishery subspecies fight this battle daily. The enemy is invisible, hardy, adept at hiding, and difficult to eliminate.
What should you pay attention to, and what measures can you take, to expose this dangerous organism so you can take steps to prevent it from growing and contaminating your product?
Here are some questions to ask about your facility, conveyors, practices, and team members so you can develop a fighting chance against Listeria in your seafood plant. But first…
Why is Listeria control particularly challenging in seafood facilities?
From the time your product is fished out of the water, it’s met with a series of conditions that prompt Listeria to grow. These include:
- Harvesting: Once caught, your product may be collected into bins with other fish or pushed around with shovels on the boat. If proper sanitation is lacking on the vessel, cross-contamination can occur.
- Moisture: Bacteria do very well in wet conditions. And there is an ample supply of water in a seafood plant.
- Temperature: While the low temperatures of seafood processing facilities stifle some bacteria—such as Salmonella and E. coli—Listeria can thrive in cold conditions. In fact, few organisms compete well with Listeria in cold to freezing environments.
![Rounded fleshtone fish filets on ThermoDrive belt](https://assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com:443/19eb64b5-1815-003a-d268-e7109927ccad/251ed32e-a906-44fa-b69d-8ecac6a2634a/5012178_Seafood-195.jpg?w=750&h=&rect=0,0,6720,4480&fit=&q=85&auto=format)
Inspect your food contact surfaces. Hygienic modular plastic and ThermoDrive belts from Intralox are nonporous, nonabsorbent, and easy to clean.
Is the equipment in your plant hygienically designed?
Fabric belts. Closed hinges. Sandwich joints. Hollow rollers. These are just some of the niches where Listeria can grow and become a source of cross contamination in seafood. “For example, if your equipment has sharp corners where chemicals and light can’t reach, it could be a point of contamination where the colony can grow,” says Stout.
Conveyors, belts, and equipment designed with hygienic principles in mind are more open, nonporous, and have fewer niches. That means fewer places for Listeria to hide and multiply.
Do you have an effective environmental monitoring program in place?
While you may be able to observe your plant’s conditions, you can’t see bacteria. You wouldn’t be able to see a million of them. If Listeria is present in your facility, you must locate it. That’s what makes environmental monitoring so critical.