Supermarkets in the United Kingdom have reported mixed Campylobacter in chicken results for the first two quarters of 2023.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) maximum target level is up to 7 percent of birds with more than 1,000 colony-forming units per gram (CFU/g) of Campylobacter.
Data from the retailers covers the first half of 2023 on high findings of Campylobacter in fresh, shop-bought, UK-produced chickens.
Results at Morrisons, Asda, and Sainsbury’s went up while Marks and Spencer recorded lower levels. The percentage of positives varied by quarter at Waitrose and Lidl and stayed the same for Co-op.
Campylobacter is the most common cause of bacterial food poisoning in the UK, and the dose needed to make people sick can be as low as a few hundred cells.
Tesco has stopped publishing data as it has changed how it monitors the pathogen in chicken, so findings are not comparable with other retailers. Aldi has not updated its related webpage or provided the figures when asked to do so by Food Safety News.
FoodWorld 