2/26/2020 Why chlorinated chicken is centre of the table in UK-EU talks | Politics | The Guardian

Why chlorinated chicken is centre of the table in UK EU

talks
Battle over food standards is a symbol of broader conflicts between the US and Europe

Felicity Lawrence
Tue 25 Feb 2020 09.43 EST

Chlorinated chicken has become totemic once again in talks between the UK and the EU about
their post-Brexit relationship, thanks to the EU inserting a new clause into its negotiating
mandate. The clause will require the UK to maintain a ban on poultry treated with disinfectant if it
wants a trade deal with its nearest neighbours.

The US allows its industrial meat producers to wash their birds in chlorine or other disinfecting
acid solutions after slaughter to kill the food-poisoning bugs they often carry, having been
contaminated by chicken faeces during processing. Persuading British negotiators to drop the ban
and accept US food standards is a high priority for the US in a trade deal with the UK.

The battle is about much more than chlorinated, or more accurately chlorine-washed chicken.
This particular US agricultural export keeps rearing its head because it encapsulates much wider
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arguments about the future of trade between the different power blocs.

Since most British consumers associate chlorine with the bleach they pour down their lavatories,
the Americans know they have lost the PR war on that particular chemical treatment, and are now
promoting the line that their farmers don’t use chlorine much any more, but favour other
disinfectants such as lactic acid and peracetic acid.

The US is the world’s largest producer of poultry meat, and nearly one fifth of what it produces is
exported. Its lower welfare standards enable it to achieve some of the cheapest production in the
world.

For Americans one of the chief prizes of Brexit is the opportunity to break open a major European
economy to its huge surplus in agricultural goods. It has experienced years of failed trade talks
with Europe in which the EU has refused to weaken its food and farming standards to bring them
in line with US ones, whether on genetic modification or gene-editing, growth-promoting
hormones in beef and pig production, a series of pesticides, antibiotics and other veterinary
drugs, and on labelling.

The EU takes a fundamentally different view on food safety to the US. It applies the precautionary
principle, banning substances and processes that are potentially harmful to humans and nature
until they are proved safe. The US tends to approve chemicals until they are proven harmful and
allows its producers to clean up at the end of the chain. It sees the EU objections to its goods as
fundamentally protectionist.

Conservative Brexiters see European objections to US standards in the same light. They have
argued that once free from burdensome EU regulations, British consumers will benefit from much
cheaper food. For them the biggest prize in return is greater access to US markets for UK financial
services.

The British poultry industry is worth £7.2bn a year. Like the US industry, it suffers from persistent
problems with contamination. (The US has more E coli and salmonella, the UK more
campylobacter; in both countries poultry is one of the main cause of food poisoning.)

British farmers know that if US imports of cheap meat produced to different hygiene and welfare
standards are allowed, they will be fatally undercut. The European industry fears the same.

For Boris Johnson, who happily played the cuddly animal card with his new dog, Dilyn, during the
election, ignoring British consumer attitudes to welfare will be difficult, especially with the EU
making clear the UK cannot have it both ways.

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Topics
Trade policy
Food safety
Brexit
European Union
Europe
Foreign policy
Farming
analysis

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