Campylobacter levels in UK retail chickens

On 8 March 2018, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) noted that the top nine retailers across the UK have now published their testing results on Campylobacter contamination in UK-produced fresh whole chickens for the period October to December 2017.

The figures show that on average, across the market, 4.5% of chickens tested positive for the highest level of contamination, these are the chickens carrying more than 1,000 colony forming units per gram (cfu/g) of Campylobacter. The figure testing positive at the highest level of contamination for the previous quarter, July-September 2017, was 5.14%.

This reduction builds on the first set of results released by retailers in November 2017, covering the period July-September 2017, with the overall trend continuing to show a reduction in the highest level of contamination. This is consistent with previous research which shows a lower level of contamination over the cooler months of the year.

Source: FSA, 8 March 2018