Home → News → Polygiene BioMaster → Antimicrobials can tame food poisoning threat
While Britain’s food industry reels from another contaminated chicken scare, the UK’s leading food safety expert is urging people in the business to take advantage of a technically advanced, safe, effective and minimal-cost tool in the fight against of food poisoning.
This week some of the country’s biggest supermarkets launched urgent investigations into claims made by The Guardian that they are being supplied with contaminated chicken, which could be infected by deadly bacteria. The probes began after alleged hygiene failures were revealed at two of Britain’s largest poultry suppliers.
Campylobacter – the most common cause of food poisoning in the UK – is found in almost two-thirds of chicken sold and is responsible for an estimated 22,000 hospitalisations every year including 110 deaths. The deadly bacteria spreads very easily through the supply chain and can be transferred from a packing plant to the outside of a food tray and from there to the supermarket shelf. The infection can then spread from raw meat to other surfaces in the kitchen.
Addmaster (UK) Ltd. suppliers of performance additives for industry, recently worked with Europe’s leading multi-material packaging manufacturer, LINPAC Packaging to develop a range of technically advanced trays and films with built-in Biomaster antimicrobial technology to reduce bacteria growth on the outer packaging of fresh meat.
Food hygiene expert Dr. Lisa Ackerley (above) says that antimicrobials can make a big difference. “While the correct handling and preparation of food by consumers at home prevents contamination, antimicrobials reduce the chances of bacterial growth – on the outer packaging of fresh meat products, for example.”
Dr. Ackerley continues: “This is an extremely useful control to help reduce the contamination of shoppers’ hands in supermarkets. Otherwise invisible bacteria could easily transfer to shoppers’ hands whilst handling packages of poultry or meat and be transferred to other foods, surfaces such as the supermarket trolley or even directly to the mouth if consumers snack whilst shopping, or feed their children – and bacteria such as Campylobacter or E. coli can be infectious in very small numbers.”
Addmaster Marketing Manager Karl Shaw says that the potential for Biomaster is to reduce the risk of contamination in key points through the food production process is not yet fully utilised or understood.
He explains: “Biomaster antimicrobial technology can be added to any product and is proven to inhibit the growth of dangerous bugs such as Campylobacter. When a bacterium lands on a Biomaster surface, it cannot replicate and therefore dies.
“Although Biomaster is already used extensively in the healthcare and medical industries, the food industry has yet to fully realise the benefits of antimicrobial protection in key areas where studies have shown that cross-contamination is a real danger – on supermarket trolley handles, for example”.
“Food companies and supermarkets alike have a duty of care to protect their customers from the dangers of cross-contamination. Antimicrobial protection is one of, if not the most powerful tools available to them.”
For more information about Biomaster antimicrobial protection email info@addmaster.co.uk
For more information about LINPAC packaging email info@linpacpackaging.com
*Please note that Addmaster was acquired by the Polygiene Group AB in January 2021, so all news articles prior to that date will still be branded as Addmaster.
