Dr. Gary Kearney:

I am not au faitwith UK policy on GMOs and I cannot speculate on whether the UK will go in a different direction from the European Union post Brexit. The UK philosophy around animal welfare is very positive, however, so we hope there will be a meeting of minds.

I was asked about the campaigns we run. Our public food safety campaigns focus on helping those in the domestic kitchen and the four Cs, which are, cooking, chilling, cleaning and avoiding cross-contamination. We use various advertisements on radio and other media as promotional tools to get the message across. We had a good collaboration with the Northern Ireland Food Standards Agency on a campaign to advise people not to wash raw chicken. The basis for this was unknown up to a few years ago but it was a very efficient campaign and the results indicated that one in four of us, who used to wash our chicken, has stopped doing so.

We also do work to focus on people who are vulnerable. A lot of us can survive a bout of food poisoning but some, including the elderly, very young children and people who are immunosuppressed, find it more difficult. We are developing a handwashing campaign for the preschool sector, which members will hear about next month. We will provide staff in that sector to tutor children in developing the core skill of handwashing and to take it home and get their parents to continue the lesson. Handwashing is one of the most important things we can do to avoid food poisoning. Young children are like sponges and can be advocates on our behalf for good public hygiene.