The West Bromwich plant is among the three UK sites under threat.
The UK’s largest supplier of chickens, 2 Sisters Food Group, has ‘temporarily suspended operations’ at a factory at the heart of allegations over the mishandling of chicken.
Employees at the West Bromwich plant were found to be altering the ‘kill date’ on chicken in order to prolong its shelf-life when it reached supermarkets, according to an undercover investigation by the Guardian and ITV.
The exposé also found evidence of unhygienic food handling practices, as well as chicken being returned by supermarkets only to be repackaged and redistributed with different expiry dates.
The company said it was ‘shocked and distressed’ by the findings and launched an internal investigation, as well as inviting the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) to the plant to conduct a separate review.
That internal investigation has now identified “some isolated instances of non-compliance with our own quality management systems”, 2 Sisters Food Group said, prompting operations at the plant to be stopped.
The Welsh-based company said that factory workers, including management, needed urgent retraining on food quality and food safety issues. It didn’t give a timescale for the temporary closure, but said the plant would only re-open “once we are satisfied that our colleagues have been appropriately retrained”.
In a statement, 2 Sisters Food Group said: “We remain committed to ensuring that we operate to the highest standards of hygiene and food safety, and we act with honesty and integrity at all times.”
The West Bromwich plant will not supply chicken meat to any of its retail accounts until the reforms have been completed.
Analysis: What exactly are the allegations?
According to the report, an undercover journalist saw workers changing records of where the chickens had been slaughtered. The Guardian and ITV News said in a statement that more than 20 workers had confirmed unhygienic practices took place, with some now refusing to eat chicken from supermarkets. A reporter claimed to have seen employees returning chicken to the production line after it had fallen on the floor.
The company was initially sheepish to respond to the accusations, saying that “we have not been given the time or the detailed evidence to conduct any thorough investigations” and insisting that initial FSA enquiries found no breaches.
But that position has changed: the company has been forced to admit that there were transgressions in the plant, and has now taken this step to cut off the supply between its West Bromwich factory and the supermarkets that it supplies.
2 Sisters has 36 manufacturing sites in the UK, eight in the Netherlands, five in Ireland and one in Poland.
It produces a third of all poultry products consumed in the UK, supplying retailers Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Lidl and Marks & Spencer.
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