Experts working on safety for farmers

The commercial poultry industry says it is working with food safety experts to reduce campylobacter levels on chicken farms.

Poultry Industry Association spokeswoman Vanessa Wintle said yesterday that research would include looking at what measures could be effective in minimising the opportunity for the chickens to be exposed to the bacteria on farms, and what the processing plants could do to minimise the numbers and incidence on the product.

The Food Safety Authority said campylobacter infestations were not new and had been "taxing our science, standard-setting and communication programmes for some time".

The authority had been working with producers for "months, if not years", director Tim Knox said.

The bug occurs naturally in water, food products and even household pets.

"While contamination rates are high for chicken, levels found in New Zealand are similar to those in other countries."

It was simplistic to say all chicken should be frozen, as that often created more problems, because incompletely thawed birds could remain uncooked in the middle.

Mr Knox said thawing also created problems with dripping fluid.