Summary
This chapter summarises foodborne illness due to cheese. Since 1980, there have been 53 outbreaks of food poisoning due to the consumption of cheese during which time almost 250,000,000 tonnes of cheese were produced. The most common organisms involved were Listeria monocytogenes, enteropathogenic Escherichia coli, particularly 0157:H7, Salmonella and Staphylococcus aureus. Of these, listeriosis is the most serious since many outbreaks have resulted in fatalities. The factors controlling the growth of pathogens are the same as those controlling the growth of starters and non-starter lactic acid bacteria in cheese (see Chap. 6). Generally, soft cheeses are more likely to be involved in cheese-associated outbreaks of foodborne illness than hard and semi-hard cheese. Generally, no details of the compositional data of the cheese involved in an outbreak are given, e.g., pH, salt and moisture; such information could be important in understanding how outbreaks occurred. Each of the four groups of bacteria involved is considered in some detail regarding their origin, the symptoms of the illness and the experimental evidence for their growth in cheese. Many cheeses are made from raw milk and confounding factors other than the use of raw milk were involved in these outbreaks.
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Fox, P.F., Guinee, T.P., Cogan, T.M., McSweeney, P.L.H. (2017). Pathogens in Cheese and Foodborne Illnesses. In: Fundamentals of Cheese Science. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7681-9_19
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