Supermarket chicken poisons 440,000 each year
Posted by Alan | Under Safe Food Thursday Jan 28, 2010
The Food Standards Agency is calling all supermarkets to reduce the amount of contaminates found in their food items after it was released that almost 66% of all the chicken sold at supermarkets contain the bug that is the root of most of Britain’s food poisoning cases.
The contaminate in the chicken is called campylobacter and is responsible for 80 deaths per year and 440,000 illnesses.
The best way to avoid getting food poisoning is to cook chicken thoroughly and to disinfect the areas where chicken is kept.
However, despite this easy advice over the last four years the amount of those who fall ill each year has risen by about 40,000.
Chief executive of FSA, Tim Smith, told the board of agency that he wrote to each of the chief executives of major supermarket chains such as Tesco, Asda, and Sainsbury’s to highlight the concern and ask for their aid in reducing the problem.
Smith stated that now is the time for retailers to change their policies when it comes to purchasing goods that are subject to contamination and that by setting standard policies, purchasing strategies, and specifications in place the amount of campylobacter incidents can be reduced.
For the moment the FSA is asking supermarket officials to attend a March summit that will educate them about how chicken should be properly cleaned. Before the summit, officials are looking into whether deep freezing or steam cleaning chicken for a brief period before placing it on the shelves will reduce the rates of contamination.
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