Government can’t do much to hold food producers accountable, but consumers can. That’s why microbial food safety should be marketed at retail, so consumers can vote with their dollars (or pounds).

The UK Food Standards Agency has declared that supermarkets are blocking efforts to tackle Campylobacter, which is found in up to 79 per cent of raw birds on sale.

Levels are dangerously high in 19 per cent of chickens and the agency has demanded this figure should be below 10 per cent by year’s end.

It says however that Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Waitrose and the Co-op are failing to help. Only Marks & Spencer is giving updates on its plans and progress in tackling campylobacter.

Professor Paul Wiles of the FSA said the industry’s response had been ‘unacceptable’.

Chief executive Catherine Brown said supermarkets had ‘pushed back’ against providing information and claimed the stores were unhappy over the FSA’s publication of campylobacter league tables.

To date, only M&S has given the FSA details of its comprehensive plan to tackle campylobacter, which involves changes on farms and in slaughterhouses.