Food Incidents
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has recently published their
annual report of Food Incidents. These are defined as ‘any event
where, based on the information available, there are concerns about
actual or suspected threats to the safety or quality of food that
could require intervention to protect consumers’ interests’.
Incidents fall broadly into two categories. Firstly, incidents
involving contamination of food or animal feed in the processing,
distribution, retail and catering chains. These incidents may
result in action to withdraw the food from sale and, in certain
circumstances, to recall, alerting the public not to consume
potentially contaminated food. The second category is environmental
pollution incidents.
In 2009, the Agency investigated 1,208 incidents in the UK. Of
these 18% were classed as microbiological incidents, 17%
environmental contamination, 12% natural chemical contamination and
12% on-farm incidents.
Incidents may be reported by a variety of organisations such as
local authorities, border inspection posts and fire services and
food businesses themselves. Food business operators are legally
required to inform the appropriate authorities where they have
reason to believe that a food that they have imported, produced,
manufactured or distributed is not in compliance with food safety
requirements.
The report describes the role of the FSA in the management of
food incidents, sets out their proposals for the future and
provides details of four case studies.
