Chitty Foods is under investigation by Surrey Police over allegations that it mislabelled meat at its former Guildford abattoir. Industry sources have suggested that the alleged offences could include falsely labelling meat as organic and labelling imported meat as British. A spokesperson for Surrey Police, which is carrying out the investigation in partnership with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Defra, refused to confirm the exact nature of the allegations,... read more →
More risk-based proportionate controls for meat are at least five years away, admit Food Standards Agency (FSA) scientists. The FSA will launch research projects later this year, working towards developing a risk-based regulatory regime for food which aims to protect public health and generate confidence in food. At its recent board meeting, the FSA endorsed the programme and confirmed it as a priority in its strategic plan for 2010–2015. FSA veterinary director... read more →
Food standards bosses have revealed more than 65% of poultry tested at retail level contains bacteria capable of food poisoning. (meatinfo.co.uk) A study by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) took more than 3,000 samples of fresh chicken from retail shelves and found campylobacter was present in 65% of the samples. However, salmonella was detected in just 6%. Campylobacter is the most common bacterial cause of food poisoning and is responsible for around 55,000... read more →
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has put out a warning to operators of food businesses, to be aware of fraudsters that visit food business premises claiming they are from the FSA. (British Baker Magazine) The fraudsters claim they need to carry out an inspection and then extract substantial amounts of money as a fixed penalty fee for the premises being allegedly unhygienic. The FSA has stated it does not carry out food inspections and there are no fixed penalties... read more →
Consensus on Salt and Health (CASH) has hit out at supermarket free-from products, which it claims contain a much higher salt content than their standard alternatives. (British Baker Magazine) Research carried out by CASH analysed the contents of 71 supermarket own-label products in ‘free-from’ ranges (gluten, wheat or dairy-free), and compared them to the retailer’s standard version. However, only just over half (56.3%) of the free-from products contained... read more →
The pilot study launched by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) into the health effects of individuals “self-reporting as sensitive” to aspartame has been criticised for being an unnecessary waste of precious research resources, according to a report on the website Food Manufacture A spokeswoman for aspartame supplier Ajinomoto argued that the safety of aspartame had been proven time and again in various robust studies over the years. Consequently, she said,... read more →
