A study of the spread of Campylobacter jejuni in four large kitchens

Campylobacters were sought in swabs taken from work surfaces, sinks and floors of four kitchens–i.e. hospital, university, cook-freeze and commercial, processing frozen or fresh chickens. Each kitchen was visited on four occasions. In the large commercial kitchen environmental contamination was found on each visit, whereas campylobacters were isolated on six of the twelve visits to the other kitchens. The hands of operatives were contaminated with campylobacters on only two of the 45 swabs taken during processing. Cleaning with detergent and hot water (or steam) and drying appears to be sufficient to remove the organism from the environment. Evidence of carriage of campylobacters by the birds was obtained on all 16 visits. In the three kitchens where only frozen birds were used the organism was isolated from 30% and 9·8% of swabs taken from the internal and external surfaces respectively, while 41 % of giblets and 22·2% of thawed juices yielded campylobacters. The external surface of 30 (88%) of 34 fresh birds grew campylobacters.