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A comprehensive review of hygiene controls and a review of unannounced inspections and audit regimes has been launched by Food Standards Scotland and the Food Standards Agency in the UK this week.
“People rightly expect food businesses to keep to the rules, rules designed to keep consumers safe and to sustain public trust in food, and food businesses have a duty to follow the regulations,” Jason Feeney and Geoff Ogle, chief executives of the FSA and FSS respectively, jointly commented.
“Our review will be far-reaching and thorough and we will announce our initial findings in June.”
Meat industry representatives met with both agencies earlier this month and “pledged their full and effective engagement with the review.”
2 Sisters inquiry
The FSA has also published an update to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s inquiry into standards in poultry processing and the findings of the FSA’s investigation into 2 Sisters food group. A total of 500 hours of CCTV from the site were examined along with audit information from major retailers. The company voluntarily ceased production at one site while changes were made and staff retrained. The FSA has had a permanent presence at their cutting plants for the last four months.
“Our investigation found some areas for improvement but the issues were resolved promptly by the company, who co-operated fully, and at no point did we find it necessary to take formal enforcement action,” said Jason Feeney, chief executive of the FSA.
“The business has made a wide range of improvements across all their sites to improve processes. They are already publishing the outcomes of all their audits and are in the process of installing high-quality CCTV across their estate that we will have full access to. These are measures we would like the whole industry to adopt.”
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