26.02.2015

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has published the latest set of results from its year-long survey of campylobacter on fresh chickens. Campylobacter is mainly found on raw poultry and is the biggest cause of food poisoning in the UK. Foodborne Campylobacter is estimated to make more than 280,000 people ill each year in the UK and is the biggest cause of food poisoning. An EFSA Opinion stated that up to 80% of cases can be attributed to raw poultry meat and a tenfold decrease
in the exposure levels from this source is likely to reduce the number of human Campylobacter cases by between 50 to 90% across all Member States.
The results to date show:
19% of chickens tested positive for campylobacter within the highest band of contamination. (>1,000 cfu/g).
73% of chickens tested positive for the presence of campylobacter.
7% of packaging tested positive for the presence of campylobacter. Only three out of more than 3,000 samples of packaging tested positive at the highest band of contamination.
The FSA’s 12-month survey, running from February 2014 to February 2015, will test around 4,000 samples of whole chickens bought from UK retail outlets and smaller independent stores and butchers. The full set of results is expected to be published in May.