European countries are facing more ethylene oxide related recalls after the substance was detected in a food additive used in a range of products.
Belgium first raised the alarm in September 2020 about ethylene oxide in products from India with sesame seeds. These related recalls are still continuing with thousands of conventional and organic items with long shelf life dates such as cereals, chocolate, biscuits, bread, crackers, spices and bagels affected.
A trade association in the United Kingdom has published a guide on managing food safety for the temperature-controlled storage and distribution sector.
The Cold Chain Federation said the guidance should make it easier for members to develop, improve and implement food safety plans and processes. The guide was produced with support from the federation’s members and the UK’s Food Standards Agency.
A review has described how the lessons from major foodborne outbreaks have helped improve Europe’s food safety system.
The research covers significant outbreaks that occurred in the past decade and how things have changed to try and prevent repeat incidents.
A survey has revealed more about people’s attitudes when handling frozen partially cooked chicken at home after the products were linked to a large Salmonella outbreak.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is investigating a spike in Salmonella infections in the United Kingdom from eating frozen raw, breaded chicken products such as nuggets, goujons, dippers, poppers, and kievs.
People are sick in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong after eating oysters contaminated with norovirus.
Reports suggest at least 100 people are ill in the UK with 12 cases in Hong Kong from raw oysters produced by Whitstable Oyster Company in the UK.
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) today reported that three Closure Orders were served on food businesses during the month of June for breaches of food safety legislation, pursuant to the FSAI Act, 1998 and the European Union (Official Controls in Relation to Food Legislation) Regulations, 2020. The Closure Orders were issued by environmental health officers in the Health Service Executive (HSE).
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) has today announced the appointments to its new Scientific Committee which will provide expert scientific advice on all aspects of food safety and nutrition. The Scientific Committee will serve a five-year term and consists of 15 members appointed by the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly T.D. A statutory body under the FSAI Act, 1998, the Scientific Committee focuses on a range of topics that can benefit public health and food safety policies. Its work provides expert scientific analysis on food safety risk assessments, risk management options and nutritional content of food.
The European Commission has again extended temporary food safety rules on official controls because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Updated legislation states the flexibility given to EU countries is needed as problems are likely to continue in the coming months and to help authorities plan checks.
An outbreak of cryptosporidium that affected 40 people in Ireland this past year has been linked to salad from one farm.
A cluster of cryptosporidiosis cases was reported from a South Dublin laboratory in July 2020. All sick people were interviewed, and environmental health officers did 110 inspections to collect food and water samples at businesses in which suspected cases had food in the 14 days before onset of symptoms.
The third joint inter-agency report on integrated analysis of antimicrobial consumption (AMC) and the occurrence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria from humans and food-producing animals (JIACRA) addressed data obtained by the Agencies' EU-wide surveillance networks for 2016–2018. AMC in both sectors, expressed in mg/kg of estimated biomass, was compared at country and European level.
Use of antibiotics has decreased and is now lower in food-producing animals than in humans, says the latest report published by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
Taking a One Health approach, the report from the three EU agencies presents data on antibiotic consumption and development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Europe for 2016-2018.
Public analyst laboratories are facing a number of challenges but there are also opportunities, according to the president of the Association of Public Analysts (APA) in the United Kingdom.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has today published its Northern Ireland Annual Report and Accounts for the past financial year. The report covers our performance and activities in 2020/21 across England, Wales and Northern Ireland at a net cost of £114.2 million.
Researchers have found a wide distribution and high diversity of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) in German flour. Recent outbreaks associated with contaminated flour and undercooked dough have been reported in the United States and Canada.
A new study published in Emerging Infectious Diseases has found that adult STEC HUS disease is more serious and fatal than the same disease in children, even though children are far more likely to develop this complication after an E. coli infection. The retrospective study looked at Shiga toxin-associated hemolytic uremic syndrome in 96 adults who lived in France from 2009 to 2017.
The deadline for registration is 30 June, midnight.
The 2021 Parma Summer School organized by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the University of Parma, the School of Advanced Studies on Food and Nutrition, and the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, will provide early-career researchers an opportunity to learn from some of the most prominent experts in the field of food systems analysis and case studies. The relevance of the food safety issues, together with the technological innovation and the necessary adaptation of the risk assessment procedures, will be addressed in the frame of food systems transformations involving complex interactions and feedback between bio-physical, political and socio-economic drivers.
A system used by European countries to report outbreaks saw the number of requests fall in 2020 compared to the year before.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) hosts the Epidemic Intelligence Information System for food- and waterborne diseases (EPIS-FWD) platform, which includes Urgent Inquiries.
