FSA Annual Report of Incidents published
30 Jun 2014 04:17 PM
The Food Standards
Agency has published its latest Annual Report of Food Incidents. The report
highlights the wide range of incidents we have managed during 2013. Last year,
a total of 1,562 food and environmental contamination incidents in the UK were
reported to and investigated by us. This figure was 42 down on 2012 but higher
than in many previous years.
The three largest contributors
to these incidents were microbiological contamination (21%), environmental
contamination (15%) and natural chemical contamination (9%). More information
about these is given below.
Microbiological
contamination
This was the only category of
incidents that have been consistently increasing over time, from 147 in 2006 to
322 in 2013. In 2013, more than 30% of microbiological contamination incidents
were due to salmonella.
Environmental
contamination
The source of almost
three-quarters of environmental incidents in 2013 was fire. Most of the
remainder were caused by spills and leaks.
Chemical
contamination
Aflatoxins, found mainly in
peanuts and groundnuts, accounted for 56% of natural chemical contamination
incidents in 2013. Most of the other natural chemical contamination incidents
were related to algal toxins in shellfish.
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