The Food Standards Agency has this morning released the results of its second retail survey of Campylobacter and Salmonella on chicken meat. The survey was carried out between May 2007 and September 2008 in an effort to better understand the prevalence of foodborne pathogens.

British Poultry Council chairman Ted Wright, said: "The BPC welcomes the FSA's study which again confirms the very low prevalence of Salmonella on chicken at retail sale. The results for Campylobacter however, really confirm that there is still much we do not know scientifically about this organism, not least the difficulty in measuring its presence or absence. It is disappointing that the FSA has again changed the basis of the survey part way through making results incomparable with the previous FSA survey and with the previous prevalence estimate.

"We need to concentrate on finding effective measures to prevent infection in flocks and less on targets that we cannot measure yet with confidence," he added.

"The chicken sector and the FSA are working together transparently and productively to implement actions from scientific projects already carried out and to promote further study on the gaps in our knowledge. The industry is fully engaged on this issue but it is still one which has to be tackled in partnership with the FSA, Defra and with researchers."

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