Reducing Listeria contamination from salad vegetable farms
This project aimed to get a better understanding of how L.monocytogenes enter vegetable farms, what is the best type of test that growers need to specify for the testing of produce and to develop information for the grower to use when dealing with L.monocytogenes. This project was designed to gather information to aid in the management of food safety in leafy vegetable farms in Australia. This project examined how the listeria is tested and looked at the value of a rapid testing method, carried out tests on produce in Victoria and Queensland over a period of 2 years, conducted tests on environmental samples, and produced a guide for vegetable and herb growers to deal with the listeria at on farm level.