Watchdog to stop giving chicken bug warnings

FOOD watchdogs are to stop ‘naming and shaming’ supermarkets selling chicken contaminated with a virulent food poisoning bug.

The decision by the Food Standards Agency came after pressure from big stores and has been described as ‘deeply troubling’ by critics.

The official watchdog started publishing details on the proportion of chickens contaminated with campylobacter in 2014.

The move was strongly resisted by supermarkets, which tried to block it with appeals to ministers amid concerns that it would hit sales.

But the publication of figures went ahead and revealed that 78 per cent of chickens sold by the major supermarkets carried the bug. A total of 20 per cent were contaminated at a high level, making them a particular risk to the public.

The tactic shamed the stores into cleaning up farms and changing chicken processing to reduce contamination. At the same time, retailers introduced ‘roast in the bag’ packs to protect customers.

The net effect has been to reduce the proportion of birds carrying contamination to around 50 per cent, and those highly contaminated to 5 per cent.

These falls appear to have been instrumental in a reduction of around 100,000 a year in the number of campylobacter food poisoning cases in humans.

But now, after pressure from supermarkets and their trade body, the British Retail Consortium, the FSA has decided to stop publishing the contamination levels of the nine biggest retailers – Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Lidl, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.

Instead, it has reached an agreement with the BRC for supermarkets to publish a limited set of their own figures. Each store will report only the proportion of chickens that carry the highest level of contamination, not the higher figure showing overall contamination.

The BRC will report the general level of contamination as an average across the industry once a year.

Professor Tim Lang, of City University of London’s Centre for Food Policy, said he was ‘deeply troubled’ by the announcement.

He added: ‘I see this as financially driven pragmatism by the FSA. Its budget is cut, its labour force, too.

‘The FSA is stopping its equal treatment approach and being driven into a light-touch approach.

‘We are seeing a weakening of the role of the FSA, not just due to its reduced personnel but out of choice. This is bizarre and unnecessary.’

Professor Lang said: ‘The FSA was created to be an independent arbiter. Now we are seeing its board approve the handing over of responsibility to the food industries it was set up to regulate and improve.

‘The board has chosen to go down the slippery slope of devolving responsibility when campylobacter continues to be a serious problem.’

The FSA will now focus on reducing contamination in chicken sold by small butchers, independent stores and farmers’ markets.

The BRC said: ‘The FSA has praised retailers for the progress made so far in relation to reduction of campylobacter.

‘Food safety continues to be the top priority for UK retailers and work to continue reducing campylobacter is ongoing.’

‘It’s bizarre and unnecessary’