Marmite Ingredients

• Yeast Extract
• Salt
• Vegetable Extract
• Niacin
• Thiamin
• Spice Extracts
• Riboflavin
• Folic Acid
• Celery Extract
• Vitamin B12

Source: Marmite website

Milk from cows that test positive for tuberculosis (TB) would be introduced into the human food chain under reforms suggested on Tuesday by government advisers on farming.

More than 200 reforms to existing food safety and environmental regulations governing farmers and food producers have been put forward by the farming regulation taskforce, which reported to ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Tuesday. The group, made up of nine farming and food industry professionals, was set up last July, with the aim of scrapping swaths of legislation put in place over several decades to protect wildlife, the environment and human health. But farmers and food companies say some of the plans represent unfair and costly curbs on their freedom to do business.

Some of the proposed reforms are likely to be controversial, including softer tests on the use of pesticides, fewer inspections of farms, and more weight to be placed on private sector inspectors for the food sector rather than publicly appointed monitors, as well as potential restrictions on rights of way for ramblers.

The prospect of products from potentially TB-infected animals being sold to consumers would represent a marked change from current policy. Not all cows that test positive for TB are carriers of the disease, as other infections can also lead to a positive result, and pasteurisation should kill any TB bacteria that could be present in milk.

Under current rules, however, all animals that test positive are slaughtered and compensation paid, and their milk prevented from reaching the food chain. These rules exist partly because some farmers have attempted to relabel their cattle as TB-free by swapping cows with other herds, and because “raw” or unpasteurised milk can legally be sold in the UK, meaning that raw milk from TB cattle could enter the food chain if the rules are not well enough enforced. But the taskforce has suggested that pasteurised milk from “TB-reactor” cattle could be rendered suitable for some form of consumption.

Other proposed measures include reducing the burden of paperwork for farmers, which can entail presenting the same information several times over for different bureaucratic purposes, and easier planning permission for farm developments.

The taskforce also wants to make it easier for unemployed people to take on much-needed seasonal work on farms, without facing disincentives such as losses to their benefits.

The taskforce said: “The key strategic message from our report is that Defra, its agencies and delivery partners need to establish an entirely new approach to and culture of regulation – otherwise the frustration that we, farmers and food-processing businesses have felt will continue. The essence of this approach is about strengthening the partnership between government and the farming and food-processing industries.”

However, Gareth Morgan, head of countryside policy for the RSPB, said that the report was milder than had been expected. “This is not the bonfire of regulations that we had feared,” he said. “But there are still concerns.”

He pointed in particular to nitrates, which are included in the report. He said the regulation of nitrates entering the water supply could be weakened if the government adopts new rules before the European Union has put forward its proposals.

The government will have to decide which reforms from the report it takes forward and which it abandons, in what is likely to be a fiercely contested battle over the future of countryside regulation.

Agriculture minister Jim Paice said: “This is an impressive piece of work with strong recommendations for reducing the burden that red tape has on the people who produce our food… This was never about a bonfire of regulations but about changing the culture of how we apply and enforce regulation. We will continue to defend our high standards for environmental management, animal welfare and food safety. I am particularly interested in the recommendations to allow industry to earn our trust and reward good practice with less frequent inspections.”

The taskforce made clear that the direction of future policy should be towards lighter regulation, and that farmers should play a key role in determining what rules might be laid down in future. Richard Macdonald, chair of the taskforce, said: “We’ve listened to what farmers and food producers have to say about how regulations and processes could be improved without reducing standards; things like a simpler livestock movements regime, reducing paperwork associated with nitrate regulations and improving bureaucracy around the common agricultural policy. We’ve also looked at the big picture and recommend a new approach to regulation based on trust, responsibility and partnership between government and industry. Our recommendations won’t all be easy but they are credible and, I believe, now is the time for change.”

He added: “The farming and food processing industries need to contribute to economic recovery and produce more food in a sustainable and safe way. To make this happen, the government needs to change the way it deals with them. By accepting our recommendations Defra will show that it is prepared to do this. It is now for Defra, its agencies and delivery partners, and industry to respond to the challenge.”

But Morgan said consumers might not agree with the direction taken. He said: “The taskforce was set up to find ways to deregulate first, and to maintain standards second. But it should have been the other way round – ministers should be asking how can we find a way to do better for society, and if necessary we will regulate to do so. I’m worried about the government’s approach.”

Agriculture, the taskforce noted, accounts for £7bn per year to the UK’s economy and employs 534,000 people, while many more are employed by the wider food sector and the rural economy.

The FSA plans to use more co-ordinated intelligence gathering and horizon scanning, including statistical analysis and intelligent software called Memex patriarch, to make it more effective.

Its existing incident classification system and the National Intelligent Model used by the UK police will then help to rank potential risks.

However, there are serious concerns that this will not guarantee any better early warning of unexpected events, such as Sudan 1 in 2005 or the Melamine incident in 2008.

Speaking at a meeting of the Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food (ACMSF), Paul Hunter, professor of health protection at the University of East Anglia, School of Medicine Health Policy and Practice, questioned the ability of such systems to ever reliably predict unexpected events.

“We are extraordinarily bad at predicting what the next big thing will be,” he said. “The danger with this system is that you fall into the trap of thinking you have covered everything that is important. You still need lateral thinking.”

FSA systems don’t talk to local authority systems

FSA Board members echoed Hunter’s concerns. Dr David Cameron and Margaret Gilmore also asked why the FSA’s IT systems were not being integrated with those used by local authorities, such as the real-time system used to monitor food imports at Heathrow Airport.

The FSA’s director of food safety Alison Gleadle remarked that while the whole purpose of the programme was to “get ahead of the game”, she accepted “we will not always catch the unknown unknowns”.

And while the Agency was working with the food industry to prevent incidents occurring, she noted that issues of commercial confidence sometimes made the sharing of data difficult.

FSA emerging risks programme

The FSA’s emerging risks programme began in April last year and runs to 2015. It aims to ensure risk-based, targeted checks at ports and local authority monitoring of imports throughout the food chain.

The programme involves the acquisition of intelligence based on historical incident data, research and surveillance programmes as well as intelligence from stakeholders, including the food industry itself and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

It also draws on data provided by the European Commission’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed, Food and Drug Administration recall data and World Health Organisation information.

The firm, Ixxy’s Bagels, of Harley Street, London, was ordered to pay £2,250 with £9,719 costs for the November 2007 incident.

The court heard that Mr Raakesh Patel, 26, was injured at the Ixxy’s factory when a rotating blade of a bagel dividing machine continued to move even when the rear doors were opened. The blade severed the middle and ring fingers on Patel’s right hand down to the knuckle.

Aware of fault

The firm pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 5(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 in that it was aware that the equipment was faulty at the time of the incident.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that Ixxy’s failed to take adequate steps to prevent Patel from using the machine.

After sentencing, HSE Inspector, Jack Wilby said: “Ixxy’s Bagels were aware of the fault on the machine, at least two days before the incident and failed to take adequate steps to protect their staff. This is another unfortunate reminder to employers, that you have a duty to maintain your work equipment.“

Tower bakery fine

Another UK-based bakery was fined last December after a worker’s fingers were crushed in the rollers of a dough sheeter machine.

The firm, Tower Bakery Limited of Shore Road, Perth, Scotland was ordered to pay £4000 for the March 2008 incident.

The company pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, in that it failed to assess the risks to workers when cleaning the dough sheeter and that it failed to give employees sufficient training, supervision, information and instruction for the task of cleaning the machine.

An HSE spokesperson previously told sister publication BakeryandSnacks.com that there were 83,000 serious or reportable injuries in the UK food and beverage sector in the past 10 years to April 2009. “The figures add up to 160 injuries each week and include 33 fatal accidents – most involving falls,” said the spokesperson.

Speaking to FoodProductionDaily.com this morning, Dutch Green MEP Bas Eickhout echoed the comments he made during the environment committee debate on dioxin regulation in Brussels earlier this week, saying that industrial oil producers should be obliged to introduce a colour tracer in their products before selling it on to fat manufacturers.

The MEPs discussed possible dioxin controls with European Commission representatives at Monday’s committee meeting. The dioxin crisis in Germany has initiated calls for action across the bloc, with the situation there first coming to light at the end of December 2010 when it was revealed that Schleswig Holstein firm Harles and Jentzsch had mixed dioxin-tainted industrial fatty oils into animal feed.

The German scandal led to the closure of 4,000 farms and has sparked global concern.

“Too many incidents show that there is a real economic incentive for some feed business operators to use the cheaper industrial fatty oils in animal feed. While the increased surveillance suggested by the EC will go some way to reducing risk, a tracer such as a colouring in the oil would enable immediate detection of tainted produce,” said Eickhout.

German Green Party MEP Martin Häusling called for a fundamental change in many areas of policy during Monday’s debate: “Food should come from farms and not from industrial plants.” And other German MEPs such as Christian Democrat Albert Dess and Socialist Ulrike Rodust urged harsher sentences in cases of grossly negligent food handling.

Meanwhile, EU health commissioner John Dalli formerly announced draft dioxin control measures at Monday’s agricuture council meeting in Brussels. The proposals are informed by the German government’s recently announced preventative actions on the toxic compound.

The Commission’s proposals, which are expected to be voted on by member states at the end of February, include an approval system for fat and feed manufacturers, monitoring and testing in fat production plants; tighter separation of fats for industrial and feed use, and regulations to mandate private laboratories to report dioxin traces.

“With respect to dioxin monitoring a strict plan for sampling and analysis for critical materials in fat producing plants will be established. It may also be appropriate to cover other activities in the feed chain by increased monitoring.

A dioxin data-base, for instance, is already established within EFSA. We will explore how to use this as a better tool in future,” commented Dalli during the farm council deliberations on proposed regulation. ‘

Dalli also reported that a team from the Commission’s Food and Veterinary Office is to visit Germany this week to assist in investigation efforts there and to gain greater insight into how the contamination occurred.

Commenting further on the issue, MEP Eickhout agreed that there appears to be a real push now from Brussels to implement legislation. But he stressed that it “has taken three dioxin crises for the issue to be firmly placed on the EU council’s agenda,” and he cautioned that similar preventative measures have previously been proposed – most notably after the Belgian dioxin crisis in 1999.

“Hopefully it won’t take another dioxin crisis to spur regulatory action,” added the MEP.

Companies have had a seven year-grace period since the THMPD entered EU law books in 2004, but EU-wide registrations under the regulation have been chronically low, meaning unless thousands of products register in the coming months, they will be stripped from health store and other retail shelves.

Selwyn Soe of the London-based The Herbal Factory told the BBC: “Unfortunately it looks as if we will have to close down because of this legislation.”

“The problem for us is that although we would have to pay many thousands of pounds for a licence to keep making each product, unlike a drug company we would not have a licence to make that product exclusively. It just will not be worth paying out the money.”

The regulation requires all herbal products making health claims to be registered. As of December 31, 2010, there had been 187 registrations for individual products in the UK. Eighty four products have been approved and none rejected.

The 100 per cent success has been attracting the interest of food supplement manufacturers and herbal ingredient suppliers who have struggled to have their science accepted under the 2006 nutrition and health claims regulation (NHCR).

But herbal sector observers and associations have been surprised by the lack of THMPD registration applications – with the UK leading the way, followed by Germany, but many member states recording no applications at all. The relative high cost of registrations has deemed as partly to blame for the situation.

The fact that there is a clear discrepancy between the way science is treated under the THMPD and the NHCR has caused some confusion, and was partially responsible for the European Commission recently removing botanicals from the NHCR process to reconsider how science in the sector should be treated.

That issue is unlikely to be revisited until the end of 2012.

The report from Birmingham City Council urged meat processors to use stronger packaging, called on supermarkets to employ better display techniques and suggested a public awareness campaign in a bid to cut the risk of cross-contamination of the foodbourne bacteria from external packing.

But it also stressed that reducing Campylobacter contamination on broiler farms was key and once achieved the benefits would be reflected throughout the food supply chain, ultimately reducing the number of food poisoning cases.

A report from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) last year found that around 80 per cent of chicken carcasses on the European market were infected with Campylobacter. The Europe-wide survey found that 75 per cent of fresh UK poultry were carrying the pathogen. The UK Food Standards Agency has declared Campylobacter to be its top priority given the bug sickens an estimated 300,000 people a year and causes 80 deaths.

Survey

The Birmingham’s Environmental Health team reached its conclusions after undertaking a survey of 20 packaged fresh chickens taken from the shelves of major supermarkets, local convenience stores and one butcher in the city.

Swabs were also taken from the chilled display cabinet at one “well-known supermarket” after it was observed pools of juice had leaked from the poultry through the packaging onto its surface.

This was exacerbated by the retail practice of standing chickens on their ends which “makes for an attractive display but due to gravitation the natural juices are concentrated into one end of the tray and can leak out if there is a weakness in the shrink wrap and seams”, cautioned the report.

Scientists from the Health Protection Agency Laboratories examined both the exterior packing and the raw meat for Campylobacter and Salmonella.

The HPA found Campylobacter on the external packaging surface of eight of the 20 samples (40 per cent), with the bacteria detected in the meat of seven of the samples (35 per cent). No trace of Salmonella was found on any exterior packaging.

Swabs taken from meat juice pooled in the display chillers also tested positive for the pathogen which, said the report, “indicated that Campylobacter was present at the point of sale”.

It also found there was no link between positive results on the meat and on the external packaging.

“This indicates that cross contamination of the external packaging could be at any point: i.e. from the packaging process, distribution, food handlers to the display area itself,” added the report. “This type of packaging can split thereby leaking onto other packs and surfaces.”

Implications

The study concluded there are issues throughout the food chain for cross-contamination to take place. However, it states the public is largely ignorant that external packaging of poultry products is one possible source of the bacteria.

“Consumers remove chicken from the display cabinets and the potential for cross-contamination starts at this point,” it said. “Any surface this subsequently becomes in contact with will be contaminated, including hands, shopping bags and other ready-to-eat foods and work surfaces.”