73% of chickens in UK retail chains are contaminated with campylobacter: FSA

A year-long survey by the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) has revealed that almost 73% of chickens in the country tested positive for campylobacter.

Campylobacter is a food bug primarily found in raw poultry, and is said to be one of the biggest reasons for food poisoning in the UK. The survey inspected more than 4,000 samples of whole raw chickens that were sold in the UK retail outlets and independent stores.

While the survey noted that most of the retailers had failed to reduce the bug over the one-year period, retailers such as Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, the Co-operative and Waitrose had been able to reduce incidences of campylobacter contamination in their products.

Campylobacter is the most common form of food poisoning in the UK, that affects almost 280,000 people annually.

FSA director of policy Steve Wearne said: "We expect all retailers and processors to be achieving the reductions we have seen in these retailers’ figures, that’s the only way we will meet the target we all signed up to.

"We are going to run this survey for a second year and will again look at campylobacter levels on chickens at retail sale.

"I hope that we will be able to see the results from the actions taken by the four retailers mentioned above and others come through and produce much lower figures for the incidence of campylobacter on the chicken we buy."

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Image: Campylobacter is said to be one of the biggest reasons for food poisoning in the UK. Photo: courtesy of amenic181/freedigitalphotos.net.