Irish authorities have told a retailer in the country to recall all frozen food of animal origin that has been imported since early March.
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) also ordered Metron Stores, which trades as Iceland Ireland, to recall implicated products from consumers.
The European Commission published its 2022 report of the Alert and Cooperation Network. The report shows that there was a significant increase in agri-food fraud activity during the year, with the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) remaining the most active network. A total 4361 notifications were transmitted through the RASFF linked to health risks in relation to food or feed. In addition, 2554 Administrative Assistance and Cooperation notifications or non-compliances with the European Union's agri-food chain legislation which do not present an immediate health risk were also reported with a further, 600 suspected cases of fraud notified.
The highest number of notifications (990) were linked to pesticide residues in fruits and vegetables, a marked 20% fall compared to 2021. Among suspicions of fraud, the most frequent notifications were related to the illegal movement of cats and dogs with 276 in total, while more than half of those involved animals coming from outside the EU borders. Pets were often accompanied by counterfeit health certificates, illegally issued EU passports providing false information on the origin, or forged rabies anti-body laboratory results. The latter is of particular concern for animals coming from countries where rabies remains widespread.
The EU Alert and Cooperation Network is made up of members of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed network (RASFF), the Administrative Assistance and Cooperation network (AAC) and the Agri-Food Fraud Network (FFN).
Report here
Wageningen University Food Safety Research has embarked on a four-year project to create an early warning system for detecting mycotoxins in European cereal grains.
The project, named "Mycotoxin Early Alert in the European Grain Supply Chain through Machine Learning and Big Data," establishes a Public-Private Partnership by uniting scientific and nonprofit groups, government bodies, and prominent industry figures.
A consortium, led by LGC in partnership with the University of Manchester and Romer Laboratories Ltd, has recently completed a project (FS101206) funded by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to develop a multi-allergen reference material kit containing five common allergens.
Recent studies suggest that food allergies affect between 1.1 and 10.8% of the global population, and the prevalence of these allergies seems to be on the rise. Analyzing food and food ingredients for the presence of allergens is crucial to guarantee safe food for people with allergies, protect the supply chain and assit businesses and risk assessors.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated antimicrobial resistance as one of the top ten global challenges facing humanity. This is not surprising, because antimicrobials have been a cornerstone in modern human and veterinary medicine. As the efficacy of these drugs decreases due to resistance, simple infections might become problematic once again, harkening back to the pre-antibiotics era. In this article, the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in major foodborne bacterial pathogens will be highlighted, and its ramifications in relation to food safety will be discussed.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has introduced a revised model for delivering food standards controls.
These checks are carried out by local authorities or district councils to make sure food produced and sold by businesses is safe and what it says it is.
IAEA and FAO are to hold an event next year focusing on the use of nuclear technologies for food safety.
The International Symposium on Food Safety and Control will take place from May 27 to 31, 2024 in Vienna, Austria.
The European Commission has stepped in to try to stop a multi-year, multi-country Salmonella outbreak associated with sesame-based products. Several patients from the United States have been confirmed.
An increased level of official controls will be applied to tahini and halva entering Europe from Syria because of the risk of Salmonella contamination. Consignments will be subject to identification and physical checks at a frequency of 20 percent
Scientists have given a preview of a forthcoming publication on the use of Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) in food safety.
The World Health Organization (WHO) will launch a guide in July that outlines the capacities that need to be in place before WGS can be useful for foodborne disease surveillance and outbreak response; options for implementing it; and how to integrate WGS within existing systems.
Food standards controls are the checks carried out by local authorities (district councils in Northern Ireland) to make sure food produced and sold by food businesses is safe and what it says it is.
The changes published today will help local authorities to take a more risk-based and intelligence-driven approach to inspection, focusing their time and resources on food businesses that pose the greatest risk to consumers.
On June 6-9, the World Health Organization has scheduled a series of talks on food safety to increase awareness and encourage a variety of stakeholders to debate and discuss an array of topics on health and food safety. Over four days, WHO will explore the topics behind World Food Safety Day’s theme: “Food standards save lives.”
Progress has been made on guidelines for remote audits but not on a food fraud text, according to reports from a recent Codex meeting.
The Codex Committee on Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems (CCFICS) met in May in Australia.
The development of draft guidelines on the prevention and control of food fraud was limited, with the text sent back to a redrafting stage.
The potential inclusion of geographical indications (GI) in the document received mixed views from members. Other areas discussed included definitions and types of fraud.
The United States is leading the Electronic Working Group (EWG), which includes the United Kingdom, China, the European Union, and Iran. Revised draft guidelines, based on feedback received, will be discussed at the next CCFICS meeting.
The number of food and beverage recalls in Europe went up in the first few months of 2023, according to an analysis.
Data comes from Sedgwick brand protection’s latest European product recall report and is based on information from the EU’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) and the Food Standards Agency (FSA).
The Global Summit on Regulatory Science (GSRS) is an annual international conference for discussion of innovative technologies and partnerships to enhance translation of basic science into regulatory applications within the global context. The conference provides an opportunity for scientists from government, industry, and academic research communities to objectively assess the utility of emerging technologies (such as nanotechnology, imaging, -omics for translational science, personalised medicine, medical product safety and food safety) for addressing regulatory research questions and to discuss the best way to translate these technologies into real-world applications.
So-called risky foods have been found on menus of healthcare facilities in Germany and Italy, according to a study published this spring.
Products that may present a risk to vulnerable people – including deli salads, raw/fermented sausage products, soft cheese, smoked fish or frozen berries – were offered on the menu of all facilities in Germany, and one-third of Italian sites.
During the pandemic, the public was encouraged to “wash their hands frequently”. A public poll shows that, although the public fully understood the importance of hand hygiene, they were unclear about when they needed to do this to protect against COVID infection.
An increase in a type of E. coli over the past decade has prompted scientists to warn of an emerging threat to public health in England.
While part of the rise is because of better detection of non-O157 Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) in labs, there is evidence more people are actually getting sick.
EFSA has officially launched our new journal Food Risk Assess Europe (FRAE), an open access repository of selected scientific articles from national food safety agencies across the EU.
Most of us will be familiar with the impact climate change has on the environment – biodiversity loss, rising sea levels, higher temperatures and much more. But it also has direct and indirect effects on the safety of our food and this is something that EFSA has to take into account when assessing risks to human, animal and plant health. Join us as we talk to one of our experts, Angelo Maggiore, about how climate change can act as a driver of emerging risks in the area of food and feed safety.
Following the success of the last two years, EFSA and its partners in EU Member States are today launching the third edition of the #EUChooseSafeFood campaign. #EUChooseSafeFood aims to help European citizens make informed decisions about their food choices. In 2023 the campaign will be bigger than ever, expanding to include 16 countries
