A supermarket is to introduce touch-free packaging to help squeamish millennials who are afraid to touch raw meat before cooking it.

Sainsburys said it was bringing in the straight-to-pan plastic pouches, which are known in the industry as "doypacks", after a survey showed the prospect of coming into contact with uncooked meat products induced high levels of anxiety among shoppers under the age of 35.

“Customers, particularly younger ones, are quite scared of touching raw meat," Katherine Hall, product development manager for meat, fish and poultry at the retailer, told The Sunday Times.

"These bags allow people, especially those who are time-poor, to just ‘rip and tip’ the meat straight into the frying pan without touching it.”

The fear of contamination by bacteria such as campylobacter, which is found in some raw poultry and can cause severe food poisoning, was so great that one woman admitted in a focus group to coating her chicken with antibacterial spray before cooking it, Ms Hall recalled.