Listeria is an environmental contaminant which has been isolated from marine and fresh waters, as well as various seafoods. Furthermore, Listeria, including Listeria monocytogenes, has been isolated from processed seafood products such as smoked fish, cooked and frozen seafoods, marinated fish, surimi products, etc. The pathogen, L. monocytogenes, does have a certain degree of heat resistance. It was found to survive in internally infected shrimp after boiled for up to 5 min. However, the commercial pasteurization process for crab meat was found to be sufficient to inactivate Listeria. The current recovery methodology for L. monocytogenes from seafoods is the Food and Drug Administration Listeria protocol.

Smoked fish samples (71) were surveyed from Newfoundland retail markets and tested for the prevalence of Listeria. Staphylococcus aureus and fecal coliforms were also detected in the samples. Listeria was present in 11.3% of the smoked seafood products; 4 smoked cod, 3 smoked mackerel, and 1 smoked caplin were found to harbor the bacterium. The Food and Drug Administration protocol was also analyzed with regards to testing smoked seafoods. The secondary enrichment broth showed a 68% false-positive rate, whereas all positive samples were detected after 24 h of primary enrichment.

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