Campylobacter is present in the guts and faeces of most poultry and is easily spread. If you imagine a battery-chicken farm, with the birds spreading faeces at any and every point of their existence, you can see the problem. Extend that to the abattoirs and cleaning processes and you can understand how the danger multiplies. By the time a chicken reaches the supermarket, even the packaging can be infected by the bacteria.
The consumer can kill campylobacter in chicken by cooking it thoroughly or freezing it for a period. However, the bug is easily spread by cross-contamination if a raw chicken is washed, or utensils, such as knives and chopping boards, are not cleaned properly. In a year, some 280,000 people in the UK become ill because of the bacteria and about 100 die.
In reality, this problem isn't new and has been known about for years, but accepted as a consequence of providing cheap chicken on the supermarket shelves. Only now are questions being asked and supermarkets are being accused of low standards. They are the current scapegoats for many of our woes, but is that fair? Customers are forever demanding cheaper food and this leads to corners being cut. The producers are forced to look for economies and haven't yet found a way of reducing the dangers without raising prices. Even if the consumer were willing to pay more, and many aren't, there is no way of preventing the presence of the bacteria, although measures can be taken to reduce the amount.
Properly-cooked chicken will be free of campylobacter, but the report is likely to deter many people from buying chicken for a while. They've been told how faeces spread amongst the chickens and have been faced with pictures of slaughterhouses and piles of chicken pieces lying in unhygienic surroundings. That's not something to highlight before you sit down to dinner. Possibly, in the interest of their health, diners will now choose a juicy, entrecôte steak or fine, pork chop instead - at least until a further report tells us the truth about them!