NEW DATA shows that only 9% of Tesco’s chicken now contains the highest levels of the food bug campylobacter. This is below the 10% target set by the Food Standards Agency.
This quarter’s results compared favourably to the 15% figure in the previous one and put the supermarket on track to hit its own “5% by 2017” target.
Across the retail industry, nearly a fifth (19%) of fresh, whole chickens analysed by the FSA between February 2014 and March 2015 tested positive within the highest band of contamination. The full-year results, published on the FSA’s website, were a reminder that there is much to be done to tackle what has become the agency’s “leading food safety priority”.
Tesco has also announced that it will donate surplus food from all its ambient distribution centres to food redistribution charity Fareshare. This is in addition to store-level agreements and will amount to an extra 700,000 meals.
The move comes hot on the heels of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s War on Waste series this month. The chef and sustainable food campaigner honed in on the waste created by supermarkets due to their stringent specification schemes and last-minute changes to orders.
Next month, a special feature in Footprint magazine will assess whether foodservice companies can make more of the produce rejected by supermarkets.
