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FSA publishes list of incidents for October to December 2016

The FSA is today publishing a summary of food incidents handled between October and December 2016, where an alert has been issued by the FSA to recall or withdraw products from sale.

This quarterly list also includes information on investigations we supported relating to potential widespread risks from food poisoning and harmful contamination.

Over the three month period, we issued 34 food notices, of which 17 were allergy alerts, with the top three undeclared allergens being milk, nuts and gluten.

The FSA also led, and in some cases supported nine incidents linked to possible risks of food poisoning, seven relating to physical or chemical contamination, and three to do with foodborne outbreaks.

We also issued one food alert relating to pet food, as the FSA is responsible for animal feed regulations and the enforcement of pet food labelling through local authorities in England and Wales.

The information published today describes the overall details of the incident, the level of risk to consumers and what action we, industry and local authorities took.

The FSA has collated this data to make it easier for consumers to access incident information.

Reviewing the current recall system

During this third quarter the FSA, together with Food Standards Scotland (FSS), has started a project to understand more about food recall arrangements within the food retail sector.

Richard Hoskin, Head of Incidents and Resilience at the FSA, said: “The system for recalls and withdrawals has never been reviewed before, and the FSA and FSS believe the time is right to take a look at how things are working to make sure we have the most effective system in place for everyone – food business operators, consumers and regulators alike.

"The project aims to identify what currently works well and where improvements could be made to better protect and inform the consumer.

"We have set up an External Stakeholder Reference Group (ESRG) made up of bodies representing industry, consumers and regulators to help us interpret research findings and identify recommendations to improve the current system. We are expecting to begin carrying forward the recommended changes in late spring 2017.”

List of incidents, October to December 2016

Quarter 3 list of allergy alerts, product recalls and foodborne outbreaks issued by the FSA

List of incidents October to December 2016 (130.60 KB)

 

Channel website: https://www.food.gov.uk/

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