RIA Novosti reports that the unique culinary delicacy was shipped from Germany.

"The entire meat lot was addressed to an individual businessman in Khabarovsk and was to be sold in one of the city's supermarket chains," Mr Salenko said.

Listeria is a bacterium that causes listeriosis, a potentially lethal infection found in plants and some animal products that manifests itself as meningitis and can lead to the death of unborn children.

Listeriosis carries a 25 per cent mortality rate in humans, in comparison with salmonella, which carries a 1 per cent death rate.