assembly lines. One leading ready meals manufacturer, for instance, boasts that it makes 2.5 million ready meals a week.
When large industrial plants are churning out such a product volume, you might think that public health authorities would drop in at intervals to check that everything is up to scratch. That happens, but not as frequently as you might assume. Official statistics show, for example, that more than 55 per cent of all registered UK food establishments did not receive a local authority health inspection or audit in the year April 2012 to March 2013. Julia Long, the Unite union’s national officer for the food sector, sums up this situation as follows:
Food processing is one of our fastest-growing industries, employing hundreds of thousands of workers. The industry needs an inspection regime that respects this and understands that public safety and confidence are paramount. At the moment, thanks to the running down of the service, a business can look forward to an inspection only once in a blue moon.
Instead, the food industry is largely left to monitor its own food hygiene and safety procedures, using a system known as HACCP: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point. This involves continuously monitoring every ‘critical control point’ where a likely hazard might arise – food poisoning bacteria, cross-contamination, and more – and keeping copious trails of paperwork to show that all possible checks have been vigilantly carried out. The emphasis in food chain regulation these days is on internal prevention, not external, independent inspection.
And yet, a lot can go wrong quickly when you manufacture convenience food at considerable speed on an industrial scale, and if it does, the consequences are extremely serious. If you’re talking food poisoning, the affected batch will have been loaded onto lorries, trucked to supermarket distribution centres, and laid out on shelves, making thousands of people ill within hours, in which case, there will be hell to pay. If the problem is rogue allergens, manufacturers will have to meet the considerable cost of a product recall. The penalties that can be imposed on them by retailers are severe, everything from being fined to losing the business.
The authorities will become involved, which is something of an embarrassment for the retailer, with knock-on consequences for the manufacturer. It could mean a ‘trade recall’, the recovery of the product from distribution centres, wholesalers, hospitals, restaurants, other major catering establishments, as well as other food processors, and/or it might also lead to a ‘consumer recall’, a complete withdrawal of the products from retail outlets. Product recall notices will have to be displayed in stores, along the lines of ‘If you have bought one of the products listed above, do not eat it. Instead, return it to the store it was bought from for a full refund or contact customer services’. Hundreds of thousands of refunds will have to be paid out.
Yet despite the dire consequences manufacturers face when their production goes wrong, recalls are surprisingly common in the UK. Barely a week goes by without one. Sometimes there are several recalls in one day. Take, for instance, 25 February 2014, when the Food Standards Agency (FSA) issued the following alert:
Sainsbury’s has recalled its ‘by Sainsbury’s’ Frozen Sticky Toffee Sponge Pudding, because the product may contain small pieces of metal.
This communication was swiftly followed by another:
Marks & Spencer has withdrawn its Lightly Dusted Salt and Pepper British Chicken Fillets because a small number of packs contain egg, which is not mentioned on the label. This makes the product a possible health risk for anyone who is allergic or has an intolerance to egg.
And yet another:
Sainsbury’s has withdrawn all packs of Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Roasted Chestnut, Toasted Hazelnut & Thyme Stuffing because the product may contain traces of
When large industrial plants are churning out such a product volume, you might think that public health authorities would drop in at intervals to check that everything is up to scratch. That happens, but not as frequently as you might assume. Official statistics show, for example, that more than 55 per cent of all registered UK food establishments did not receive a local authority health inspection or audit in the year April 2012 to March 2013. Julia Long, the Unite union’s national officer for the food sector, sums up this situation as follows:
Food processing is one of our fastest-growing industries, employing hundreds of thousands of workers. The industry needs an inspection regime that respects this and understands that public safety and confidence are paramount. At the moment, thanks to the running down of the service, a business can look forward to an inspection only once in a blue moon.
Instead, the food industry is largely left to monitor its own food hygiene and safety procedures, using a system known as HACCP: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point. This involves continuously monitoring every ‘critical control point’ where a likely hazard might arise – food poisoning bacteria, cross-contamination, and more – and keeping copious trails of paperwork to show that all possible checks have been vigilantly carried out. The emphasis in food chain regulation these days is on internal prevention, not external, independent inspection.
And yet, a lot can go wrong quickly when you manufacture convenience food at considerable speed on an industrial scale, and if it does, the consequences are extremely serious. If you’re talking food poisoning, the affected batch will have been loaded onto lorries, trucked to supermarket distribution centres, and laid out on shelves, making thousands of people ill within hours, in which case, there will be hell to pay. If the problem is rogue allergens, manufacturers will have to meet the considerable cost of a product recall. The penalties that can be imposed on them by retailers are severe, everything from being fined to losing the business.
The authorities will become involved, which is something of an embarrassment for the retailer, with knock-on consequences for the manufacturer. It could mean a ‘trade recall’, the recovery of the product from distribution centres, wholesalers, hospitals, restaurants, other major catering establishments, as well as other food processors, and/or it might also lead to a ‘consumer recall’, a complete withdrawal of the products from retail outlets. Product recall notices will have to be displayed in stores, along the lines of ‘If you have bought one of the products listed above, do not eat it. Instead, return it to the store it was bought from for a full refund or contact customer services’. Hundreds of thousands of refunds will have to be paid out.
Yet despite the dire consequences manufacturers face when their production goes wrong, recalls are surprisingly common in the UK. Barely a week goes by without one. Sometimes there are several recalls in one day. Take, for instance, 25 February 2014, when the Food Standards Agency (FSA) issued the following alert:
Sainsbury’s has recalled its ‘by Sainsbury’s’ Frozen Sticky Toffee Sponge Pudding, because the product may contain small pieces of metal.
This communication was swiftly followed by another:
Marks & Spencer has withdrawn its Lightly Dusted Salt and Pepper British Chicken Fillets because a small number of packs contain egg, which is not mentioned on the label. This makes the product a possible health risk for anyone who is allergic or has an intolerance to egg.
And yet another:
Sainsbury’s has withdrawn all packs of Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Roasted Chestnut, Toasted Hazelnut & Thyme Stuffing because the product may contain traces of
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