Using the Apache Commons IO API https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-io/ I was able to establish this using FileUtils.readFileToString(file).contains(stringToFind)
The documentation for this function is at https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-io/javadocs/api-2.4/org/apache/commons/io/FileUtils.html#readFileToString(java.io.File)