Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis Virus (IPNV) - Fróðskaparsetur Føroya

1.3.1 Description of the Processing Plant
The processing plant has marine aquacultures situated in different places on the Faroe Islands.
Prior to harvesting the marine aquacultures (marine salmon grow-out cages) are transferred to
the location of the on-shore harvesting plant (the harvesting site) and the fish is pumped from
the seawater into the harvesting plant. Inside the harvesting plant, the fish is stunned and
transported on a conveyor belt to a road tanker. In the road tanker the fish is exsanguinated
(bleeding out). The road tanker then transports the fish to the processing plant. When inside
the processing plant the fish first reaches a large cooling tank, thereafter the fish is eviscerated
and transported into the next cooling tank. A conveyor belt then transports the fish to quality
check where the fish is sorted and graded according to weight. Thereafter the fish is packed
and iced, before it is stored and then sold.
While we where taking samples the harvesting plant was situated in fjord A and the
processing plant in fjord C. The fish was therefore transported in a road tanker from fjord A,
after stunning to fjord C, where it was processed further.
1.3.2 Sampling Coverage
All seawater samples were taken from three harvesting sites, located in different fjords (A, B,
and C) on the Faroe Islands. Reference samples were taken by the marine aquacultures
(surface water just beside the aquacultures). The harvesting and processing plants were also
examined. We wanted to establish if the L. monocytogenes found in the processing plant came
from the seawater or if there was another source of contamination. We also examined two old
L. monocytogenes positive samples taken from the processing plant, to examine if the
processing plant might have an “in house” L. monocytogenes culture.
Appendix 1 shows where the samples were taken and when. In the beginning of this project
we had several L. monocytogenes positive seawater samples taken by the processing plant we
examined. We examined seawater samples over a period of six months, one sample every
month from October 2010 to March 2011. Sampling inside the processing plant was made
over a period over three days.
Day 1 – 6 March 2011: Samples were taken at the harvesting (samples 1-4) and processing
plant (5-15) before production started, to see if the cleaning and disinfection had been
efficient enough.
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