Indian-origin 'chicken king' to review hygiene at UK factory

LONDON: An Indian-origin businessman, referred to as UK's "Chicken King" which was at the centre of an investigation into contamination of poultry, has been asked to review its procedures, a media report said.

Ravi Boparan's 2 Sisters Group, the UK's largest poultry supplier, was singled out in an investigation by the 'Guardian' newspaper focusing on the contamination of chicken with campylobacter - a bacteria that can cause food poisoning.

The UK government's food watchdog was forced to admit that an initial inquiry, which cleared one of the UK's largest poultry processing plants of hygiene failings, was misleading, the newspaper claims.

Instances of chickens being dropped on the floor then returned to the production line, documented by the Guardian investigation, constituted a "breach of the legislation", the Food Standards Agency ( FSA) has now acknowledged.

Following the revelations at the site in Scunthorpe in July, UK health secretary Jeremy Hunt asked the FSA to investigate, the report said.

It rated the factory as good and wrote to the shadow food and farming minister saying there was no evidence of any breaches of food hygiene legislation, it added.

But in a climbdown less than a month on, the FSA has written to Labour's Huw Irranca-Davies admitting it was wrong.

Concerns about hygiene standards in poultry production focus on preventing the spread of the bug campylobacter.

An estimated 280,000 people in the UK get sick each year because of it, and about 100 die. It is the most common cause of food poisoning, with chicken accounting for the vast majority of infections.

Although, the bug is killed by cooking but can spread easily from raw chicken.

Meanwhile, 2 Sisters said in a statement that they "will carry on with our own continual improvement programme, taking on board learnings, investing in our colleagues, our factories and our product development.

"We will also lead on hygiene and continue with our industry-leading campylobacter trials to tackle this issue once and for all.

"We are determined to lead the poultry sector with best practice and compliance, and are always looking to improve standards across our operation.