June 28, 2023

 

UK supermarkets release late 2022 results for Campylobacter in chicken

 

Supermarkets in the United Kingdom have reported their Campylobacter in chicken results for late 2022.

 

The Food Standards Agency's (FSA) maximum target level is up to 7% of birds with more than 1,000 colony-forming units per gram (CFU/g) of Campylobacter.

 

Data from the retailers covers October to December 2022 on high findings of Campylobacter in fresh, shop-bought, UK-produced chickens.

 

Results at Waitrose, Morrisons and Lidl went up while Marks and Spencer, Aldi, Asda, and Sainsbury's recorded lower levels of contamination than the previous quarter. Figures for Co-op stayed the same.

 

Tesco has stopped publishing data as it has changed the way it monitors the pathogen in chicken so findings are not comparable with other retailers.

 

Marks and Spencer had 1% in the maximum category in October, November and December from 376 chickens sampled. This compares to 6% in July, 2% in August and none in September.

 

Morrisons had about 2% of chickens at the top contaminated level compared to nearly 0.9% in the third quarter of 2022. Lidl recorded almost 3% of birds in the highest category, which is up from 2% in the past quarter.

 

Waitrose and Partners had 2.1% testing positive for Campylobacter at levels above 1,000CFU/g compared to 2% in the previous quarter.

 

Co-op results for the fifth quarter running showed no chickens tested were contaminated at levels greater than 1,000CFU/g.

 

Aldi's results improved with 1.7% of chickens sampled in the above 1,000CFU/g category compared to 3.3% in the past quarter.

 

Asda reported that no chickens were above 1,000CFU/g in the final quarter of 2022 compared to 0.6 in the previous three months. The total in 2022 was 1.1% above 1,000CFU/g, which is down from 1.7% in 2021.

 

Sainsbury's Campylobacter results for Q4 2022 showed 1% of chickens had levels above 1,000CFU/g compared to 2% in the third quarter.

 

- Food Safety News