More than a third of people in the United Kingdom were unaware that takeaways and food businesses were required by law to undergo safety and hygiene checks, according to a survey.
People in the UK buying homemade food online and from social media chefs during lockdown has become increasingly popular during the past 12 months. Oliver’s Kitchen commissioned a survey of 5,000 British residents to find out their thoughts and experiences eating this type of takeaway
EFSA Call for Expression of Interest External Experts - Food Contact Materials / Recycling Plastics Working Groups
Deadline for sending applications: 15 April 2021 midnight (CET).
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), based in Parma, Italy is looking to expand its pool of scientists with expertise in the areas of Food Contact Materials and/or Recycling Plastics.
Scientists with the required expertise are invited to express their interest by applying to this call and may be considered for participation in one of EFSA’s Working Groups under the Scientific Panel on Food Contact Materials, Enzymes and Processing Aids (CEP).
In the latest FSA Takeaway, two experts discuss some key findings of the Food Allergy and Intolerance Research Programme, how good quality research informs the FSA’s work, and where its next study will lead.
Two outbreaks of hepatitis A virus (HAV) with 17 infections are under investigation in Ireland.
A total of 21 patients have been identified during a three-month period in Dublin, with 17 linked to the outbreaks that began in November 2020. One of the outbreak strains has genotype IA.
Three cases of hepatitis A were reported to the Department of Public Health East in mid-November with no direct link between them. Three further patients in late December prompted an incident review meeting.
In 2011, WRAP estimated that 1.2% of fishery produce was wasted, costing retailers alone £12 million. Why are fish and seafood products so perishable? Understanding this may help us identify ways of extending shelf-life by a day or more, potentially saving producers and retailers millions of pounds each year in wasted food.
In a new blog by our microbiology expert, Dr Greg Jones, we take an in-depth look at fish and seafood spoilage and new research that is attempting to increase the shelf-life of these products.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has picked the Institute for Global Food Security (IGFS) to support food safety and authenticity research.
The IAEA and IGFS of Queen’s University Belfast in the United Kingdom formalized their collaboration during a virtual ceremony at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting.
Food businesses can use a new online tool to assess their vulnerability to food crime.
The ECDC Strategy 2021-2027 defines ECDC’s goals in the coming years to continue ensuring that decision-makers receive the necessary advice and scientific evidence to support changes in policy and practice in the area of communicable disease prevention and control. ECDC works in a close and coordinated way with EU/EEA Member States, EU Institutions, and several international partners, such as the WHO Regional Office for Europe.
Following an official request to EFSA from the European Commission, EFSA assessed the chronic dietary exposure to inorganic arsenic (iAs) in the European population. A total of 13,608 analytical results on iAs were considered in the current assessment (7,623 corresponding to drinking water and 5,985 to different types of food). Samples were collected across Europe between 2013 and 2018. The highest mean dietary exposure estimates at the lower bound (LB) were in toddlers (0.30 μg/kg body weight (bw) per day), and in both infants and toddlers (0.61 μg/kg bw per day) at the upper bound (UB).
This editorial proposes directions for the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to meet its current and future obligations as a source of public information and communication on food‐related risks in the EU. These directions are intended to guide EFSA's communications through changes driven by new legal obligations, a new organisational strategy cycle and social and technological evolution.
The Cost Estimates of Foodborne Illnesses data product provides detailed data about the costs of major foodborne illnesses in the United States, updating and extending previous ERS research. This data set includes the following:
Why is blockchain relevant for agrifood and how can it contribute to sustainable agrifood in the data economy? Blockchain has the potential to offer many opportunities for increasing transparency, traceability, efficiency, and the position of farmers and horticulturists in the agrifood chains — aspects that are essential for sustainable agrifood.
Latest research has shown that the impacts of climate change are already evident in Irish marine waters, with the patterns of harmful algal blooms changing in recent decades. The research, undertaken by the Marine Institute, also indicates that the ocean off southwest Ireland will likely become warmer and less salty by the year 2035.
Irish officials investigated almost 50 unregistered food businesses in 2020 which is more than double the figure from the year before.
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) was part of enquiries into 47 unregistered firms this past year compared to 19 in 2019.
Investigations resulted in 17 tons of unfit or unsafe food ta
This report of the EFSA and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control presents the results of zoonoses monitoring activities carried out in 2019 in 36 European countries (28 Member States (MS) and eight non‐MS). The first and second most reported zoonoses in humans were campylobacteriosis and salmonellosis, respectively. The EU trend for confirmed human cases of these two diseases was stable (flat) during 2015–2019. The proportion of human salmonellosis cases due to Salmonella Enteritidis acquired in the EU was similar to that in 2017–2018.
Campylobacter, Salmonella and E. coli infections declined in Europe but Listeria monocytogenes infections went up in 2019, according to figures from the zoonoses report.
Campylobacteriosis was the top infection followed by Salmonellosis, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), yersiniosis and listeriosis, according to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) annual report. For data on outbreaks in Europe in 2019 click here.
The authentication of food to ensure that it has not been subject to fraud is a significant and challenging task. Currently there is not an internationally recognised official definition of food fraud. A generally accepted concept is that food fraud occurs when a perpetrator deliberately passes off a foodstuff that does not meet either implicit or explicit claims. It therefore covers a huge variety of acts including, but not limited to, undeclared addition of water, exceeding fishing quotas, redirection of stolen products and substitution of key ingredients. When using an analytical approach to verify the authenticity of a product, it is important to identify a strategy, which enables differentiation between fraudulent and authentic samples.
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) today reported that, in collaboration with its official agencies, investigations were carried out into 47* unregistered food businesses in 2020, as compared to 19 in 2019. These unregistered food businesses were operating illegally without the knowledge or supervision of the competent authorities. Some of these food businesses were established in domestic kitchens or private dwellings with inadequate food safety processes, procedures and facilities in place, as a result of the temporary closure of the food business in which the people were employed due to the COVID-19 restrictions.
Multi-country outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis sequence type (ST)11 infections linked to poultry products in the EU/EEA and the United Kingdom
