Targets for Campylobacter 2010-2015
I have been reading several publications on the FSA targets for reduction in Campylobacter; the targets have now been agreed. It is hoped that the reduction in the presence of this organism in flocks, which stands at about two thirds of raw chicken sold, will reduce the number of cases of people made ill from the organism.
The program will work from now to reach targets by 2015 which will be aimed primarily at the slaughterhouse stage and not retail at present although this may be added in the future.
About 300,000 cases of illness from Campylobacter are reported each year so that would indicate that the actual figure is a lot higher. There are deaths associated with the illness but this is less than 0.3%. Also not all the illness comes from poultry and poultry products.
The FSA are hoping for a 30% reduction in Campylobacter food poisoning by 2015.
There are several propositions they are looking at to reduce levels including better hygiene at slaughter sites and the introduction of MAP packaging with higher levels of oxygen. Personally I think that a public advertising campaign would be useful as there must be many instances of cross contamination in private households, and smaller FBO who may well not be as well informed about the hygienic production and cross contamination risks.
There is gong to be a category/banding based approach based on enumeration <100, 100-1000 and >1000 cfu/g and the highest levels are to be most targeted.
Laboratories will therefore have to introduce enumeration methods (Enumeration Method ISO/TS 10272-2 2006) if they have not already got them; recent evidence seems to suggest that the enumeration methods actually detect more Campylobacter than the detection methods. It is possible that detection and enumeration method will run in tandem. Even thought the targets are for slaughterhouse I would think that is probable that enumeration will be requested for more products from more from testing laboratories.
Laboratories undertaking the testing will be required to be ISO 17025 with a scope of accreditation covering ISO 10272-1 and ISO10272-2 for chicken samples. It may be that the FSA will establish an independent EQA for this organism.
The full FSA release can be found at http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2010/dec/campytarget
FoodWorld 