Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a normal inhabitant of the intestines and is necessary for nutrition and intestinal health. It is the most common facultative anaerobic bacterium in the faeces of warm-blooded animals and humans.

The purpose of a Risk Profile is to provide contextual and background information relevant to a food/hazard combination so that risk managers can make decisions and, if necessary, take further action. Risk Profiles include elements of a qualitative risk assessment, as well as providing information relevant to risk management. Risk profiling may result in a range of activities e.g. immediate risk management action, a decision to conduct a quantitative risk assessment, or a programme to gather more data. Risk Profiles also provide information for ranking of food safety issues.

The purpose of a Risk Profile is to provide contextual and background information relevant to a food/hazard combination so that risk managers can make decisions and, if necessary, take further action. The place of a risk profile in the risk management process is described in “Food Administration in New Zealand: A Risk Management Framework for Food Safety” (Ministry of Health/Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, 2000). Figure 1 outlines the risk management process.

This document reports on a recent survey for pYV-positive Y. enterocolitica (YeP+) on retail raw pork using a new rapid and sensitive method developed at ESR to both detect (presence/absence) and enumerate (by most probable number method) this pathogen.

Following on from the PFGE report of isolates to the end of 2008 (PFGE Typing of Meat
Isolates of E. coli O157:H7 in New Zealand; ESR, March 2009), this report describes the
results of PFGE analysis of an additional 55 E. coli O157:H7 isolates from meat received by ESR to 1 October 2009, and includes nine isolates associated with the
AgResearch/AsureQuality “Investigating E. coli O157:H7 False Positives” project.

The molecular typing by PFGE has now been completed on all E. coli O157:H7 isolates
from young calves, bovine, veal, prime beef, and human cases included in the 2006 PFGE
Emergency Response typing project as well as prime beef and veal isolates submitted to
ESR up to July 24th 2008. The PulseNet Aotearoa (New Zealand) E. coli database contains
723 NZ E. coli O157:H7 isolates, including 411 human, 189 meat, 118 animal, and 4
environmental isolates.

From March to September 2006, 25 isolates were uploaded to the PulseNet USA E. coli O157:H7 pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) database with the XbaI:BlnI pattern EXHX01.0074:EXHA26.0569. Although this pattern is relatively common in the US database, this number of isolates suggests a potential common source outbreak. USDA-FSIS found E. coli O157:H7 isolates from two meat-processing plants with two similar XbaI:BlnI patterns (EXHX01.0074:EXHA26.0569 and EXHX01.1401:EXHA26.0569). One common link between these meat-processing plants is that both sourced some of their meat from New Zealand.

This study was conducted in order to quantify the distribution of Campylobacter on various sites of the poultry carcass, and to determine whether any differences existed in the relative distribution of Campylobacter on chicken between two New Zealand poultry processors (defined as Processor A and Processor B).

The aim of this work was to determine how the numbers of Campylobacter, quantified by the NMD sampling procedure, related to actual bacterial counts present on the carcass of birds obtained from four New Zealand poultry processors. Birds were collected at positions on the production line that were likely to optimise the chances of obtaining quantifiable numbers of Campylobacter from rinsates and macerated and/or homogenised skin samples.

The aims of this study were to show whether overall garments worn by broiler farmers into
sheds housing Campylobacter positive flocks could be contaminated, and if so, could loose
debris shaken from these overalls transfer infection to other sheds.

This report is part of a project investigating on-farm risk factors for Campylobacter contamination of poultry flocks in New Zealand. It is intended to contribute to the identification of such factors that offer opportunities for risk management. The preparation of this report will be followed by farm visits during early 2007.

The purpose of the document is to provide a benchmark against which the efficacy of
alternative milk treatment systems can be assessed.

This report details the available methods for the detection of coagulase-producing staphylococci and their enterotoxins that could be applied at various stages during cheese production from the view of their possible use by small cheese makers.

The purpose of a Risk Profile is to provide contextual and background information relevant to a food/hazard combination so that risk managers can make decisions and, if necessary, take further action. Risk Profiles include elements of a qualitative risk assessment, as well as providing information relevant to risk management. Risk profiling may result in a range of activities e.g. immediate risk management action, a decision to conduct a quantitative risk assessment, or a programme to gather more data. Risk Profiles also provide information for ranking of food safety issues.

The purpose of a Risk Profile is to provide contextual and background information relevant to a food/hazard combination so that risk managers can make decisions and, if necessary, take further action. Risk Profiles include elements of a qualitative risk assessment, as well as providing information relevant to risk management. Risk profiling may result in a range of activities e.g. immediate risk management action, quantitative risk assessment, or a programme to gather more data. Risk Profiles also provide information for ranking of food safety issues.

The purpose of a Risk Profile is to provide contextual and background information relevant to a food/hazard combination so that risk managers can make decisions and, if necessary, take further action. The place of a risk profile in the risk management process is described in “Food Administration in New Zealand: A Risk Management Framework for Food Safety” (Ministry of Health/Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, 2000). Figure 1 outlines the risk management process.