Commission Decision of 5 February 2010 concerning a financial contribution from the Union towards a coordinated monitoring programme on the prevalence of Listeria monocytogenes in certain ready-to-eat foods to be carried out in the Member States (notified under document C(2010) 592) (2010/75/EU)

1. Type and detail of sample

Samples shall be taken at random from the customer display and must weight at least 100 g each. It is possible to take more than one sample from each three ready-to-eat food category during the same visit to the retail outlet. However, no more than five batches from each category should be sampled at the same visit.

Only packaged and intact (sealed) packages, packaged by the manufacturer, shall be collected for sampling. However, in case of cheeses, products packaged at the retail outlet may also be collected for sampling.

The products collected for sampling must be labelled in order to make it possible to record information concerning the products. Information on the label shall include the following:

(a)

details of the country of production;

(b)

batch number;

(c)

durability date;

(d)

instructions on temperature storage conditions, if available;

(e)

other information which is normally on the label of packaged ready-to-eat food.

If not all the information referred to in points (a) to (d) is present on the label, the sampler shall ask the owner or manager of the retail outlet for the missing information on the product and labelling details and/or refer to the wholesale pack for that information.

If the label on the ready-to-eat food is not clear or is otherwise damaged, then the product shall not be collected for sampling. Two samples shall be collected from each batch of smoked or gravad fish sampled. Labelling information, such as batch numbers, date until which the product may be sold must be examined to ensure that the two samples are from the same batch. One of those two samples must be analysed on the day of receipt of the sample at the laboratory and the other at the end of shelf-life.

For soft and semi-soft cheeses and heat-treated meat products, only one sample is taken from a batch that must be analysed at the end of shelf-life.

The samples must be placed in a separate sampling bag and sent immediately to the laboratory for analysis

Precautions must be taken at all stages to ensure that the equipment used during sampling, transport and storage is not contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.