A MARKS & Spencer fresh chicken ranked as the most likely among the UK’s main supermarkets to be contaminated with food poisoning bug campylobacter at the highest level.

The latest figures from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) shows 9.5% of samples from M&S tested positive for campylobacter at more than 1,000 “colony forming units” per gram of skin. The survey found Sainsbury’s ranked the best of nine retailers, with 2.6% of its chickens testing positive for the bug at the highest level. A total of 1,492 fresh, shop-bought chickens were tested across supermarkets and other outlets, such as local butchers, between last August and December. Lidl ranked second from bottom, then Aldi, Co-op, Asda, Tesco and Waitrose.

Campylobacter is the leading cause of food poisoning in the UK and makes 280,000 people ill each year.

However, the FSA said the figures showed levels of campylobacter in chicken continued to decline, and there had been a 17% decline in the number of laboratory reports of human cases of campylobacter in 2016.

Overall, 7% of chickens tested positive for campylobacter within the highest band of contamination, down from 12% for the same period in 2015 and 20% in 2014.

Among the nine retailers with the highest market share, 5% of chickens tested positive for campylobacter within the highest band of contamination.

FSA chairwoman Heather Hancock said: “The challenge we set of reducing the number of people who get ill from campylobacter has been achieved.

“In the absence of any other clear indicators, we can reasonably say that the work that we and the food industry have done from farm to fork has given us this really positive result for public health.

“We commend the efforts of the larger retailers and the major processing plants who supply them, all of which have shown significant improvement and many have achieved the target we set to reduce the highest levels of campylobacter. They have invested a lot of effort and money into interventions to tackle the problem.

“But there is more to be done and our focus now is on encouraging the smaller retailers and processors, who generally haven’t met target levels, to follow the lead of the major players and we are considering how we can best help them and monitor their progress.”