FSA REVIEW INTO MEAT CUTTING PLANTS & YET MORE DIRTY MEAT STORIES

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the Food Standards Scotland (FSS) published their review of Cutting plants and cold stores on 11th October 2018, following the meat hygiene scares of last year and this year.
 
After their board meeting on the 17th October 2018 they posted the following “The Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland Boards respond positively to the UK-wide meat Review”. The link to their news alert is directly below.
 
https://www.food.gov.uk/news-alerts/news/the-food-standards-agency-and-food-standards-scotland-boards-respond-positively-to-the-uk-wide-meat-review?navref=breadcrumb
 
There were nineteen recommendations from this review, but two of the recommendations were given a time limit of “Longer Term (+18 months)”.

“Recommendation 18. Introducing CCTV at critical points within cutting plants and cold stores even though there is currently no legislative requirement for them to do so”.

CCTV in slaughterhouses was mentioned years ago by the agency after the damming EU Food and Veterinary office (FVO) report carried out in 2007. Also, previously they had poor reports from the EU FVO in relation to animal welfare and hygiene issues.

The Department of Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) are now bringing this in for animal welfare in slaughterhouses. Whilst this is very welcome, it should also be used for food safety in slaughterhouses, cutting plants and cold stores. It could also help prevent food fraud, which appears to have occurred in a cutting plant that was filmed in an undercover investigation by Journalists within the last year. Yet the review states a wait of at least 18 months and are letting the industry take the lead on this.

CCTV would require some real time monitoring, rather than using it after something had occurred to be effective. To enable this, extra resources may be required from Government, for the costs of the additional labour for the FSA. However, these costs could be shared by collaborative working with DEFRA.
 
“Recommendation 19. Work with industry, Westminster Government and the devolved administrations to introduce a more standardised approach to the wording of durability on product labels and require food businesses throughout the meat supply chain to adopt that approach. If legislation is required we will work with industry and Defra to develop the legislation to mandate this requirement”.

If legislation is required in relation to the wording of product labels for durability, both the FSA and DEFRA should bring this forward now and not wait +18 months to do so in order to protect the consumer from foodborne illness and from food fraud.  

Medium Term (6-18 months)
“Recommendation 11. Industry representative bodies to assume responsibility for the Meat Industry Guide as set out in EU regulations and to further ensure it reflects requirements of the Manual for Official Controls. Further work is required to clarify the regulatory input and oversight”.

This seems to be suggesting letting the food businesses or their representatives say what official controls are required under EU & UK law and then define what the law is. Surely the Food Standards Agency, who are meant to be the competent Authority, should be writing any such material.

Recommendation 15.
Ensuring at least one member of staff (directly employed or contracted) should be trained to Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) Level 4 with all other food handlers trained to Level 2 as a minimum.

Training of food business operational staff is welcomed, however the operational management of food businesses such as slaughterhouses and cutting plants should have to undertake training up to level 4, so they are not asking their staff to undertake anything they know is wrong in relation to Hygiene legislation.

The above are just a few of the recommendations in their review.

Yet again, the FSA has more dirty meat stories, but they have not mentioned this one in their online news or alerts.

The link below is another brilliant article by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, on how hundreds of pig carcasses were destroyed after dangerous hygiene failings at a UK meat plant. The meat was destined to be sold to America, but had to be destroyed as America does not normally accept meat that is visibly faecal contaminated.
 
In America if they find Bacterium such as E.coli O157, they destroy the entire batch of meat. (This is normally done after testing the meat, although testing does not catch it on every occasion). The UK meat is generally not tested prior to reaching the public.
 
In the UK, we generally allow the meat to enter the food chain and then rely on a cooking temperature of 70 degrees centigrade for at least 2 minutes or its equivalent to kill bacterium. Whilst this normally is sufficient, it does not always work as previous Government research has shown.    
 
So, whether you are in favour of Brexit or not, if we cannot sell meat to
America (which many experts believe has a lower food safety standard
than the UK), then our meat industry is really in trouble when it comes to food safety & hygiene.
 

Thank you all for your continued help and support.