The prevalence and serovar diversity of Salmonella in various food products in Estonia

•A total of 260 (0.54%) of 47,927 food samples were Salmonella positive.•Salmonella prevalence in non-thermally processed food was 0.81% (256/31,576).•Salmonella prevalence in RTE products was only 0.02% (4/16,351).•24 different serovars were identified among the 260 Salmonella positive samples.•Most frequent serovars were Salmonella Typhimurium, Salmonella Derby, Salmonella Enteritidis and Salmonella Newport.

In this work the prevalence and serovar diversity of Salmonella in various food products including non-thermally processed food and ready-to-eat (RTE) food in Estonia in 2008-2012 are summarized. The findings demonstrate that the overall prevalence of Salmonella in these food categories was low. A total of 260 (0.54%) of 47,927 food samples were found to be positive for Salmonella, the overall prevalence in non-thermally processed food was 0.81% (256/31,576) and in RTE products only 0.02% (4/16,351). Salmonella was most often isolated from raw eggs and products thereof (2.17%, 5/230), followed by raw meat products (0.95%, 207/21,723), RTE mayonnaises (0.90%, 2/221) and raw meat (0.89%, 38/4252). In the raw meat category, Salmonella was most frequently isolated from turkey meat (6.96%, 11 positive samples out of 158), broiler chicken meat (4.00%, 7/175) and from layer hen meat (2.22%, 11/496). Salmonella was isolated in lesser extent from meat preparations (1.91%, 82/4292), minced meat and mechanically separated meat products (0.97%, 100/10,344) and from raw sausages (0.35%, 25/7087).Altogether 24 different serovars were identified among the 260 Salmonella positive samples. Salmonella Typhimurium was the most frequent serovar (26.90% of the positive samples) and it was isolated most commonly in raw food products. The next most frequent serovars were Salmonella Derby (17.50%), Salmonella Enteritidis (8.37%) and Salmonella Newport (7.57%). The only serovars isolated from the Salmonella positive RTE food samples were Salmonella Infantis (two isolates) and S. Enteritidis (two isolates).