Major UK retailers publish campylobacter results
The UK’s ‘top nine’ retailers have published their results on campylobacter contamination in UK produced whole chickens, covering July to September 2017, following the Food Standard Agency’s (FSA) changes to the campylobacter survey a few months ago.
According to the results released by Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Lidl, M&S, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose, the percentage of chickens containing more than 1000 colony forming units per gram (cfu/g) lie in the range of 0 to 9%, being “broadly consistent” with the results released by the FSA on 18th October – showing that all nine retailers lied in the range 0 to 12%.
The equivalent figure for the these nine retailers in the year August 2016 to July 2017 was 5.6%, while the figure for the overall UK market, including smaller retailers and butchers, was 6.5%.
The figure was decreased from 19.4% in the first full year of the FSA retail survey, covering February 2014 to February 2015.
Heather Hancock, chairman of the Food Standards Agency, commented: “I am pleased to see the major retailers publish these important figures about their progress in tackling campylobacter in chicken.
“’This is a very positive step towards transparency and openness in the food sector, and one which reinforces public confidence in food. We welcome the ongoing reduction in contamination levels that these results indicate, and the resulting benefits to public health that retailers and processors have helped deliver over the last few years.”
Hancock highlighted that FSA will continue to monitor the retailer results, but the agency’s resources will “now be focused on smaller processors and outlets, to drive down contamination levels across the rest of the industry”.
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