Frozen raspberries grown in Serbia recalled in Denmark after norovirus outbreak
I love the berries – raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries. Frozen, fresh, I go both ways and take whatever I can get. Berries and beer, the secrets to long life and other things.
But not when they contain norovirus and make people barf.
Orchard frozen raspberries, hand-picked and harvested in Serbia in June and July 2009, are being recalled in Denmark, after being linked to sick people and norovirus was detected in the product.
Norovirus in frozen raspberries
Albert Amgar, a food safety consultant in Laval, France for the past 21 years and the provider of all things French and food safety for bites.ksu.edu, steps out in his first barfblog post.
National Food Safety Authority Evira recommends that foreign frozen raspberries always be properly heated before use. Norovirus epidemics have occurred in different parts of Finland over the spring and the cause is suspected to be foreign frozen raspberries used in cakes without heating.
Evira urges consumers and mass caterers to check the origin of frozen raspberries and to only use foreign raspberries after adequate heating in order to avoid food poisoning. Frozen raspberries of foreign origin should be heated for at least two minutes at 90 degrees Celcius.
The problem is well known. In 1995, scientists from Denmark reported that "imported frozen raspberries caused a series of norovirus outbreaks". But in the conclusions the authors noted, very friendly to their other European colleagues, "As Polish frozen raspberries are known to be exported to several European countries, it would be extremely surprising, if Denmark were the only country where there were recent outbreaks due to frozen raspberries.”
