Butchers’ chicken has the most food bugs

SMALL butchers, farmers’ markets and farm shops are to be targeted by food watchdogs amid allegations they are selling a high number of contaminated chickens.

At the same time, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) is scaling back the policing of supermarkets, despite evidence of hygiene failures at processing plants.

Figures from the FSA show that more than half of chickens sold across the High Street – 54 per cent – carry the food poisoning bug campylobacter. And more than one in 20 carry high levels on the skin, meaning they are particularly dangerous.

There are almost 500,000 cases of campylobacter food poisoning in the UK every year, most caused by con- taminated poultry. It can be fatal, with around 100 deaths a year.

The FSA introduced a survey of campylobacter contamination of chicken in an effort to shame retailers, particularly supermarkets, into protecting customers. As a result, the stores have made improvements on farms, despite recent disclosures over hygiene failures at processing plants.

Currently, contamination levels are highest in birds sold by butchers, farmers’ markets and farm shops. Some 71.6 per cent carry the bug and 17.1 per cent have high levels.

Controversially, the FSA has now decided to stop publishing its survey of contamination rates for supermarkets and will target small butchers and farm shops instead.

The change alarmed critics, who point out that around half the fresh chickens sold by supermarkets still carry the food poisoning bug.

Professor Tim Lang, of City University’s Centre for Food Policy in London, said this new regime is ‘deeply troubling’ and risks letting supermarkets off the hook. ‘The FSA was created to be an independent arbiter for the public health,’ he said. ‘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 FSA said major retailers had made ‘significant progress’ and there was a need for smaller establishments to show ‘the same improvement’.

‘Letting stores off the hook’