Chicken Breast For A Meal Maybe Not? Consumer Reports Indicates Food-Borne Illness Found On Nearly All Chicken Breasts

While many restaurateurs often have special suppliers for the foods that they prepare, some turn to grocery stores when they’re running low on any given day. But before these products are purchased, they should be sure to pay attention to any recalls that are issued, as a recent release from Consumer Reports found that a substantial amount of chicken late last year had strains of bacteria that had the potential to make people sick.

In its report, “The High Cost of Cheap Chicken,” the product review company found that on all 316 raw chicken breasts that were purchased, there was enough bacteria detected to make consumers ill should the breasts not be cooked sufficiently.

What made this study particularly noteworthy, Consumer Reports indicated, was that this was the first instance in which it tested for multiple bacteria strains, including enterococcus, E.coli, campylobacter and kiebsiella pneumonia.

“When people get sick from resistant bacteria, treatment may be getting harder to find,” said Dr. Urvashi Rangan, a toxicologist and executive director at Consumer Reports. “Our survey also shows that consumers are making buying decisions based on label claims that they believe are offering them additional value when that is not in fact the case.”

The report also indicated that roughly 50% of the chicken breasts that were sampled had one or more strands of bacterium that were resistant to multiple types of antibiotics.

Rangan added that the U.S. should be able to follow suit to how many European countries have fared regarding spotting fewer instances of salmonella. Nearly two dozen countries had salmonella contamination rates of 1% or lower.

RC4 Insurance Agency, LLC provides businessowners insurance protection for restaurateurs who may have unwittingly served contaminated foods resulting in one or multiple patrons’ illness. Outbreaks may result from improper cleanliness in the preparation area. A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that of the establishments analyzed, nearly 90% did not have a policy on how to clean contact surfaces.