Tag Archives: mozzarella

Lots of Listeria in Italian mozzarella cheese – but is it high risk?

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Following a Listeria monocytogenes detection in a mozzarella cheese sampled at a dairy plant in Lazio Region, further investigations have been conducted both by the competent Authority and the food business operator (as a part of dairy factory HACCP control).

In total, 90 dairy products, 7 brine and 64 environmental samples have been tested. The prevalence of Listeria monocytogenes was 24.4% in mozzarella cheese, and 9.4% in listeriaenvironmental samples, while brines were all negatives.

Forty-seven strains of L. monocytogenes have been isolated, all belonging to 4b/4e serotype. In 12 of these, the macrorestriction profile has been determined by means of pulsed field gel electrophoresis. The profiles obtained with AscI enzyme showed a 100% similarity while those obtained with ApaI a 96.78% similarity. These characteristics of the isolated strains jointly with the production process of mozzarella cheese has allowed to hypothesise an environmental contamination.

Italian Journal of Food Safety 2014; colume 3:1708

Mozzarella King arrested over ceramic in cheese

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Giuseppe Mandara, whose mozzarella is sold by British supermarkets and UK-based online food suppliers, was also accused of producing batches contaminated with ceramic shards from a faulty machine.

The Telegraph reports investigators said his Mandara Group had received significant injections of cash from the Camorra mafia, the organized crime group based in Campania, the region where mozzarella is produced.

Police seized assets worth more than £78 million, including the company.

They said the 56 year-old, who once described himself as the “Armani of mozzarella”, had struck up a secret commercial relationship with the Casalesi clan of the Camorra in the 1980s after he ran into financial difficulties.

The clan is based in and around the town of Casal di Principe, at the heart of a region famous for its mozzarella, which is produced from the milk of domesticated buffalo.

Police said Mr Mandara, who was photographed chomping on a cigar as he was led away by officers, was arrested on suspicion of mafia association and endangering public health. They said two tons of the company’s mozzarella may have been contaminated with minute ceramic fragments from a broken machine.

The company was also accused of passing off ordinary provolone cheese as being of a more superior quality with false labelling. Following news of his arrest, Mr Mandara was expelled from the Consortium for the Promotion of Buffalo Mozzarella after an emergency meeting of its council, which described the allegations as “very serious.”

Consumer with a camera turns in mozzarellas turning blue

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There aren’t a lot of blue foods.

There was blue string soup in that Bridget Jones movie.

Food safety police in northern Italy seized a batch of 70,000 mozzarella cheeses that turned blue once they were removed from their packaging.

The agriculture ministry announced emergency control measures on the cheese, which was made in Germany for an Italian company that sold it to discount supermarkets in the north of the country.

The cool part is that a consumer alerted authorities in Turin by sending images from her mobile phone of the soft, white cheese immediately turning blue once it came into contact with air.

Those mobile image devices are everywhere and some people know how to use them (not me). So use them when food appears shoddy.

The name of the discount chain that sold the cheese was not disclosed, because it had "managed the situation well" and immediately removed the cheese in question from its shelves, a police statement said.

Managed it well after their cheese was fingered by a consumer with a camera?