According to Public Health England, the number of people infected by campylobacter in the first 35 weeks of 2015 was 42,147, compared with 41,083 for the same period last year. The figures show campylobacter is by far the biggest cause of food poisoning, with salmonella in second place at 4,096 cases over the same period.
According to the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), up to 80% of cases of campylobacteriosis can be attributed to raw poultry. And the FSA has identified the pathogen as its leading food safety priority.
A year-long FSA survey, which ended in February this year, found that 73% of chickens from UK retail outlets tested positive for the pathogen, with 19% in the highest band of contamination. The FSA has now commissioned a second survey running for 36 months from July this year. The first-quarter results are due to be published towards the end of November.
It has set a target, jointly agreed with the poultry industry, to reduce the number of birds most contaminated with campylobacter to less than 10% by the end of 2015.
Highly critical of FSA
An expert, who did not want to be named, was highly critical of the activity by the FSA and some of the poultry companies. He said: “There has been a lot of hype and press coverage claiming success rather than effective action. While this FSA campaign has been going on the number of human infections has actually increased.”
He said companies were failing to invest in effective controls, adding: “There has been a 2.5% increase in infections so far this year and that could translate into nearly 2,000 extra cases for the full year.”
A spokeswoman for the FSA said: “The FSA acknowledges that human cases of campylobacteriosis remain high. Nevertheless, our Acting Together on Campylobacter campaign has achieved real traction with a number of retailers and processors.
“We are now seeing impactful interventions being implemented and would like all parts of industry to introduce these at scale. We now need to see the work done by industry reflected in our surveys. As levels of campylobacter on chickens fall, reductions on human illness will follow.”
The industry has been improving on-farm biosecurity, installing new processing equipment in factories and adopting ovenable packs for chicken in attempts to reduce campylobacter levels.
Cargill and 2 Sisters Food Group
Last month Cargill announced it would be installing SonoSteam, which uses steam and ultrasound to kill the bacterium, and earlier this year Faccenda Foods introduced the first UK continuous production line application of SonoSteam.
Also last month, 2 Sisters Group said it would be introducing secondary scalding to drive down campylobacter levels.
More equipment is coming on-stream from a partnership between Bernard Matthews and BOC. The Rapid Surface Chilling technique uses liquid nitrogen to kill bacteria on the surface of the birds. BOC’s Derrick Norvill said the latest prototype had just finished trials at Lincoln University’s National Centre for Food Manufacture. Earlier prototypes had been too slow to be commercially viable but it had now achieved a speed where the cost was about 2p per bird, he said.
Meanwhile, don't miss the first of our reports from the Food Manufacture Group's one-day Food safety conference earlier this week. Read the how the head of the Food Standards Agency's new Food Crime Unit assesses the threat of organised crime targeting the food and drink industry.