A food business owner in Somerset has been ordered to pay more than £50,000 following a successful prosecution for failing to test chickens and eggs for salmonella before they went into the food chain following a joint investigation by Devon County Council trading standards service and the Food Standards Agency (FSA).
Poultry farmer Stuart Perkins of SG Perkins Ltd, age 38 from Somerset, received the substantial fine at Bath Magistrates Court on Wednesday 3 July after pleading guilty to various offences under The Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013 and the Animal Health Act 1981 and was found to was also found to have presented birds for slaughter with either falsified documents or with documentation which did not relate to those particular birds.
The FSA, working with partners including Avon and Somerset police, Environmental Health and Trading Standards, executed a search warrant at the poultry farm and abattoir in November 2023 and found evidence of traceability concerns and that Perkins had falsified Salmonella testing certificates. This meant birds had been slaughtered for the food chain without proof they were free from disease.
The Animal and Plant Health Agency supported the investigations, monitoring the welfare of the poultry on site and collecting official Salmonella samples.
The court heard that Perkins ran a farm producing boiler chickens and free-range eggs, with the chickens being processed at his abattoir across the road.
By law, farms producing eggs are required to conduct routine salmonella tests in their poultry sheds every 15 weeks during the laying period.
In addition, all birds must arrive at the slaughterhouse with the salmonella test result and the date the sample was taken.
But when the Egg Marketing Inspector visited the farm and requested salmonella reports, Perkins produced 16 reports dated back to August 2021, 13 of which had been falsified.
As part of the investigation, 43 documents showing that testing had been carried out on the chickens were also found to have been filled out by Perkins himself.
Perkins and his company, SG Perkins Limited was ordered to pay a total of £50,830.75.
This includes a fine of £5000 for each of the offences prosecuted by the Food Standards Agency (£20,000 total), and £3500 for each of the offences related to his business (total £7000).
Costs of £15472.75 were awarded to the FSA and costs of £6358 were awarded to Devon County Council (Trading Standards) and a victim surcharge of £2000.
