Staff Reporter
ANIMAL rights groups have raised the alarm about the chicken being sold by German retailer chain Lidl, after microbiological testing they requested revealed that 70% of the poultry meat it sells across Europe contains bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.
What’s more, the tests also showed that 38% of the samples contained listeria, while 83% carried pathogens that will cause diarrhoea such as E.coli and Campylobacter.
Lidl, for its part, has denied the accusations levelled at it by the groups, which include Spain’s Animal Welfare Observatory (OBA), and which has in turn notified the Consumer and Agriculture Ministries of its findings.
The tests were carried out by a German laboratory, according to a report in Spanish digital news site Informacion.es. The lab reportedly tested 142 products from Lidl’s own brand, ones that are sold in establishments in countries such as Spain, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Poland.
Read more: Health warning in Spain: Lidl ice cream is found to contain metal fragments
The OBA reported that among the products tested were chicken wings, chicken legs and chicken breasts that were purchased in Spain’s biggest cities, Madrid, Barcelona and valencia.
The results showed that 17 of the 24 samples from Spain – which is 71% – contained bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.
This was a much higher percentage than found in Germany, where the result was 33%, and the UK, where it came in at 58%.
These germs can cause urinary tract infections, pneumonia and septicemia.
In 83% of the chicken tested from Spain the presence of pathogens that cause diarrhoea were found.
The OBA has demanded that the ministries it sent the results to carry out an investigation into the safety of these meats, and that it issue a report with its conclusions.
The campaign manager for the OBA, Julia Elizalde, blamed the supermarket’s suppliers for the problem, claiming that they raise ‘chickens that are overcrowded among their own excrement, which creates a paradise for the propagation of pathogens’.
In a statement reported by Informacion.es, however, Lidl said that the study was aimed at ‘discrediting the company’s image with false and/or unproven information’, adding that ‘the items allegedly analysed are produced by suppliers that supply chicken meat to a large majority of Spanish distribution chains’.
