Listeria: The Inconvenient Truth
12:30 - 13:30, Thursday 10th July 2025
Chair: Professor Lisa Ackerley
Speaker: Karin Goodburn MBE, Director General of the Chilled Food Association
About this webinar
Listeria monocytogenes can cause the infection Listeriosis when contaminated food is eaten. Symptoms of can be mild for many people, but severe symptoms or even fatalities are possible from the invasive form of this infection.
EU Regulation 2073/2005 sets microbiological criteria for a range of organisms and foodstuffs, including for Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat foods. Changes to this Regulation will be implemented in 2026 that will affect the testing regimes required by food business operators which provide food sold in EU Member States or jurisdictions applying EU Law (eg Northern Ireland).
This webinar will cover the changes to the EU Regulation, the implications in the context of established best practice, trade and Brexit, and compliance issues.
Chair: Professor Lisa Ackerley
Lisa is a Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner and has worked in the public and private sectors, academia, and as an expert witness. For over 30 years she has been an independent hygiene and safety adviser, providing expert input on hygiene and safety issues. As Director of Public Health and Hygiene Engagement at Reckitt, she developed a risk-based approach to hygiene at large events, including COP26, and the Commonwealth Games. Lisa is Chair of the RSPH Food Special Interest Group and Trustee and Scientific Adviser to the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene. She is Chair of the Technical Advisory Board of Food Alert and Chair of the Board of the Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute.
Speaker: Karin Goodburn MBE Hon FIFST CSci FRSPH MIAFP MSc BSc (Hons)
Karin Goodburn specialises in chilled food science, technology and regulatory affairs, as Director General of the Chilled Food Association, and as a consultant, advising government on policy, safety and supply chain issues, providing technical guidance to manufacturers and representing industry in the UK and around the world. She has overseen development of numerous industry and other guidelines and standards with regulators, industry and researchers, and works with the EU/EC, UN FAO/WHO, GFSI, UK Government, its agencies, European federations and food professionals’ organisations’ steering groups. Karin chairs the Industry Listeria Group and the Food & Biocides Industry Group, and is involved in the negotiation, interpretation and implementation of European law including the Microbiological Criteria for Foodstuffs Regulation 2073/2005, being one of the authors of a range of industry guidance thereon. She is an enforcer trainer including on 2073/2005 and high risk foods. She also chairs the SPS Certification WG representing food and feed trade associations and professional organisations working together to minimise trade friction in EHC/SPS products between GB and the EU/NI by identifying issues and proposing solutions to Government and its Agencies.