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Listen to this siteTuesday 27 July 2010
chicken
The Food Standards Agency has today published the proceedings of an international meeting it hosted to identify and prioritise key interventions to reduce campylobacter in chicken in the UK.
‘Campylobacter is the single biggest cause of food poisoning in the UK and we have made it our number one food safety priority’
Latest research from the Agency showed that about 65% of raw shop-bought chicken in the UK is contaminated with the potentially deadly food bug. As part of its strategy to reduce these levels, the Agency organised an international conference in March to learn from other countries’ experience in the fight against campylobacter.
Agency officials and representatives from UK industry met with their counterparts from around the world to discuss which interventions had worked in other countries and the potential solutions that could be used in the UK.
A report of the meeting, published at the link below, sets out the key actions recommended by experts at the meeting. The FSA will be taking forward a series of actions informed by these findings, in partnership with the UK poultry industry, retailers and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The actions nclude:
Liz Redmond, Veterinary Director and head of food hygiene policy at the Food Standards Agency, said: 'Campylobacter is the single biggest cause of food poisoning in the UK and we have made it our number one food safety priority. The conference we held in March was very helpful in developing the action plan which we are now taking forward in partnership with the industry. We look forward to continuing to work pro-actively with the food industry to implement changes that are aimed at making UK chicken safer and as part of this process will be setting a new target by December 2010 for reducing campylobacter in chicken by 2015.'
The Agency is carrying out a range of other activities as part of its strategy to reduce campylobacter levels, including funding new research to find out more about the organism. As part of this work, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has today announced that up to £2 million of funding will be available from the BBSRC, the Agency and Defra in a joint research call. Information on the procedure for responding to the call is on our procurement pages at the link below.
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