The Scotsman

Under-fire chicken supplier suspends operations

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One of the largest suppliers of chicken to UK supermarke­ts has suspended operations after an investigat­ion allegedly revealed a string of health and safety breaches.

2 Sisters Food Group said supply will only restart once it is satisfied workers have been “appropriat­ely retrained”. An undercover reporter working at a West Midlands site of 2SFG claimed to see workers tampering with slaughter dates, mixing meat of different ages and source codes on crates of meat were also changed.

The practices can artificial­ly extend the shelf life of meat, and make it untraceabl­e in the event of an outbreak of food poisoning. When meats of different ages were mixed together, the slaughter date of the newest batch rather than the oldest batch would be used, employees claimed.

2SFG said in a statement last night: “Our internal investigat­ion has shown some isolated instances of non-compliance with our own quality management systems.

“We have therefore decided to temporaril­y suspend operations at the site to allow us the time to retrain all colleagues including management in all food safety and quality management systems.”

Tesco has now become the latest supermarke­t to suspend buying chicken from the company, following Marks & Spencer, Aldi and Lidl.

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