Chlorine-washed chicken: US tells UK to drop objections, angers Sustain

05 Jan 2018 --- A US trade official is urging Britain to cut strict rules after Brexit in a bid to boost trade, which has reignited a row over chlorine-washed chicken from America. According to a report from Bloomberg Politics, Ted McKinney, an undersecretary for trade at the US Department for Agriculture, has made some remarks about how tough it is to do business with Britain, and currently Europe, because of tough safety rules.

He urges that once the UK leaves the European Union, the UK government could set its own food safety standards which could pave the way for easier trade between the US and UK.

He made the comments during the recent Oxford Farming Conference where he also said that he is “sick and tired” of the UK’s objection to chlorine-washed chicken and claimed the practice doesn’t really happen very much in US farming in any case.

“We would like all of British society to understand that is not a practice that’s in use very much,” McKinney is reported as saying in Bloomberg.

“The quality of our poultry, we’d put up against UK poultry any day of the week and twice on Sunday.”

“We hope that the UK will look for its own food standards, environmental safety protocols. We find the EU a very difficult place to do business and so we hope that as part of Brexit, the reset button can at least be considered.”

The comments have ruffled UK lobby group Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, which says Britain should not have to lower its food safety standards in order to strike trade deals.

“The US can’t seem to make up their minds. First, they insisted chlorine-washed chicken was safe to eat, but now they’re saying they don’t really use chlorine anymore,” said Kath Dalmeny, Chief Executive of Sustain.

“At the same time, they’re telling us we need to abandon our food safety standards – like the EU ban on chlorine. Given their higher rates of food poisoning and overuse of farm antibiotics, we’d rather not have the US telling us what to eat, thank you very much.”

“The point about their use of chlorine is that it is used to mask low animal welfare and poor farming standards, which the British public will just not accept. Leaving the EU is an opportunity for us to build an even Better Food Britain; we should not have to lower our standards to strike trade deals.”