The percentage of chicken sold at smaller retailers that is contaminated with high levels of Campylobacter remains above a Food Standards Agency target.
A UK-wide survey sampled 1,008 chickens from August 2019 to October 2020. It looked at levels of Campylobacter on whole fresh retail chickens from independent shops, butchers and smaller chains such as Iceland, McColl’s, Budgens, Nisa, Costcutter and One Stop.
Campylobacter was detected in 59.6 percent of the chicken skin samples from non-major retailers, and 12.8 percent of them were above 1,000 colony forming units per gram (CFU/g) of chicken skin. This continues to be higher than levels found in samples from the nine major retailers.
The highest single count was 89,000 CFU of Campylobacter per gram of skin. The proportion of highly contaminated chickens was the most for butchers compared to the stores that are part of smaller retail chains.
Rise from last survey
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has a maximum acceptable level of no more than 7 percent of birds with more than 1,000 CFU/g of Campylobacter. In 2019, the UK reported 58,718 cases of campylobacteriosis with raw chicken meat identified as a key vehicle of infection.
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