Eggs and salmonella
The situation with salmonella has improved dramatically since the 1980s, primarily as a result of the British Lion scheme and the compulsory vaccination against salmonella demanded by the Lion Code of Practice.
However, caterers need to be aware that some eggs they may be offered will not have the same food safety standards as Lion Quality eggs – around 20% of eggs in the UK are imported each year.
Human salmonella cases in the UK have reduced by two-thirds since the introduction of the British Lion Quality scheme. Reports from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the Health Protection Agency (HPA) published in 2004 praised the British egg industry for the huge decline in salmonella associated with eggs. However, several other European countries have experienced continued outbreaks of salmonella and there were outbreaks among humans in the UK in 2009 directly linked with imported eggs. An FSA survey of imported eggs on sale in the UK, published in 2006, found egg shell and/or contents contamination in one in 30 boxes of six eggs sampled. HPA tests on imported eggs in 2004 found nearly 7% tested positive for salmonella. In the same HPA investigation, salmonella was not recovered from any British Lion eggs.
EFSA research
While there have been issues with imported eggs, the status of UK egg production as among the safest in the world was confirmed in a report by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published in 2007. The EFSA report analysed the results of an EU-wide survey which sampled and tested the environment on egg layer flock holdings. Several countries reported levels of salmonella of public health significance on their flock holdings of more than 50%, while the UK figure was only 8%. 2008 figures have shown that, in the UK, salmonella of public health significance on flock holdings has since fallen to 1%.
In addition, British Lion Quality egg producers vaccinate their hens against salmonella and, in the analysis of the UK results within the EU survey, vaccination was also shown to reduce the prevalence of salmonella on holdings.