Farm and slaughter house intervention strategies to control Campylobacter in the UK poultry industry

Campylobacter is the most common cause of food borne-illness in the UK. An EU baseline study estimated prevelance in broilers of 75 percent and in boiler carcasses of 86 percent (ESFA, 2011). It is responsible for over 80 deaths p.a. in the UK, over 65 percent of which is derived from campylobacter infected chicken (FSA, 2011). This project will develop two main intervention strategies on the farmand slaughterhouse to reduce the burden of Campylobacter in the UK poultry industry. This is particularly timely due to the recent targets released by the FSA to reduce the proportion of high contaminated carcasses from 27 to 10 percent by 2015. The strategies are based on dietary supplements aimed at reducing Campylobacter survival in the gut (novel anti-microbials); and deployment of novel screening technologies to increase contamination detection on cracasses in the slaughterhouse (flourescent faecal markers).