The horse meat scandal in 2013 led to an increased focus on preventing food adulteration, according to Dr James McIntosh of safefood. James, a toxicologist, spoke at two seminars held in June and November this year, entitled ‘Food Authenticity: Protecting your business from food fraud’.
“You really need to know how secure your supply chain is. It's a bit like a relay team; you are only as good as your weakest runner, so you have to ask: how secure are the links in your chain?” says James, who co-chaired the seminars hosted by safefood in conjunction with Teagasc and Queen’s University Belfast (QUB).
More than 200 delegates attended the events held in Dublin and Belfast, where a total of 12 individual presentations on monitoring, detecting and preventing food fraud were given.
Opening each seminar, keynote speaker, Chris Elliott, Professor of Food Safety and Director of the Institute for Global Food Security at QUB, discussed the ramifications of his report, the Elliott Review into the Integrity and Assurance of Food Supply Networks for the agri-food economy and the red meat industry.
Fighting food crime
Peter Whelan, Director of Audit and Compliance in the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, stressed that food crime is about vast illicit profits and described in detail the complexity of the criminal networks involved.
Kathryn Baker of the Food Standards Agency NI, discussed their role in combatting food crime as well as the origins of the FSA Food Crime Unit, its remit and approach going forward, and how the sharing of information is key in keeping a food crime unit effective.
Europol gave attendees in Dublin an overview of Operation Opson, which works to combat the organised crime networks behind illicit trade in counterfeit and unregulated food and drink.
Such fraud can pose health risks. “Think back to the horse meat scandal. You can go into a butcher’s in France and buy horsemeat, but the difference is that meat is traceable. When you don’t know where something comes from, you don’t know what could get in,” says James.
Reducing risk to businesses
Businesses are not helpless against food fraud, however. Lynn Patterson of the food hygiene consultancy LP Associates showed how they can defend themselves. Senior management, for example, should have systems in place to ensure their operations are kept informed of new risks to the authenticity of their raw materials. They should also establish testing processes to reduce these risks.
Lynn set out five steps: map your supply chain; identify impacts, risks and opportunities; assess and prioritise your findings; create a plan of action; and implement, track, review and communicate.
Paul Willgoss, Director of Food and Technology at Marks & Spencer, also spoke about how they, as retailers, have approached the subject of food fraud and how they look at risk and put risk mitigation practices in place.
Controlling supply chains
At the seminar in Dublin, Prof Patrick Wall, Associate Professor of Public Health at the School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Science in University College Dublin, discussed how full control of supply chains is so crucial. Dr David Hammond from Eurofins, which specialises in analytical testing, advises food producers to only use suppliers they have visited and audited or which have been approved by a reputable third party.
In Belfast, Richard Moore, Director of Linden Foods, discussed the importance of adopting the advances in technology and DNA testing in order to improve traceability within the meat supply chains. Denis O’Brien, Director of Standards and Solutions at GS1 Ireland, a global standards organisation, spoke about the growing need for food business operators to manage internal traceability as well as the importance of data sharing.
Find the seminar presentations and a number of video interviews with speakers on safefood.ning.com and http://safefood.eu.
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