WOW! THE FOOD STANDARDS AGENCY [FSA] FINALLY TAKE ACTION. HOWEVER, IS MORE TRANSPARENCY REQUIRED?

In the last few weeks, the FSA has actually been successful in two legal cases against meat companies who were in breach of Hygiene legislation. 
 
According to their news alerts on the website, one of the companies, Asia Poultry & Meat Ltd, received a fine and costs of more than a quarter of a million pounds.
 
Asia Poultry and Meat Ltd had been due to stand trial for breaching a detention notice which prohibited access to food chillers without the FSA present, before they pleaded guilty.
 
The incident took place after the FSA found evidence of rodent activity during an unannounced inspection in October 2017.

The link to this is below.
 
https://www.food.gov.uk/news-alerts/news/birmingham-meat-plant-fined-over-ps250000-for-removal-of-detained-meat
 
However, the FSA failed to mention in their news of 12th March this year, that Asia Poultry and Meat Ltd had an official inspection (audit) on 28th April 2017, which indicated that improvement was required. The company was informed that another official inspection would be carried out in July 2017 due to several major non-compliances.
 
On 12th July 2017 a further inspection was carried out by the FSA and once again this indicated that improvement was required as several major non-compliances were found. Once again Asia Poultry and Meat Ltd were informed that a further official inspection would be carried out in 3 months.
 
On 25-10-2017 a further official inspection was carried out by the FSA and this indicated that urgent improvement was required as several major non-compliances and one critical non- compliance were found. Asia Poultry and Meat Ltd were informed that a further inspection would be carried out in 2 months.
 
Whether or not the unannounced inspection in October 2017 was at the same time as this official inspection, it raises the question as to why the FSA management allowed a company
who required improvement to be allowed to trade without taking any legally enforceable action until at least six months after they knew about their hygiene problems. This is sometimes referred to as light touch regulation.
 
On the 8thMarch the FSA reported in their news that a meat cutting plant was fined £19,580 after pleading guilty to food hygiene offences.
 
The link to this story is below.
 
https://www.food.gov.uk/news-alerts/news/birmingham-meat-cutting-plant-fined-for-hygiene-failings
 
This company also had problems in relation to requiring improvement. 
 
On 12-12-2017 Asia Halal Meat Suppliers Ltd were found to require improvement necessary as they were found to have several major non-compliances and were informed a further audit would be required within 3 months.
 
On 12-03-2018 the company was found to require urgent improvement as they were found again to have several major non-compliances and were informed a further audit would be required within 2 months.
 
According to the FSA PERFORMANCE AND RESOURCES REPORT Q3 2018/19 for their Business Committee 13 March 2019 (FSA 19-03-16 Final Version) only 53.13% of Meat Food Businesses are rated as “Good”.
 
Twelve meat businesses were noted to require either improvement or urgent improvement. This means that 45% of meat food businesses are rated as “Generally Satisfactory”
As we know from previous research and the FSA website that at least 25% of these will have major hygiene non-compliances during an inspection or audit which is not in accordance with the hygiene regulations that became law in 2006.
 
Last week on 14thMarch, Channel 5 in their “Secrets of your Supermarket Food” programme showed after testing, how 40% of chickens they purchased from well known supermarkets contained Campylobacter.
 
Their scientific expert from Nottingham University stated there were no safe limits of Campylobacter.
 
They also found that 25% of samples were resistant to one of two antibiotics used to treat sufferers of illness caused by it.  
 
They also found one sample of chicken that contained 40,000 colony forming units per gram (cfu/g) of campylobacter which is approximately 40 times above >1000 colony forming units per gram (cfu/g) of campylobacter, of which the Supermarkets have to show on their website results, as a level that is likely to cause illness and which they base their main reductions on.
 
This is what I believe happens when you let private companies mark their own work or the FSA reduce totally independent inspections and audits and adopt a light touch regulatory enforcement approach to preventing foodborne illness.
 
Thank you for your continued help and support.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PERFORMANCE AND RESOURCES REPORT Q3 2018/19
Food Standards Agency Business Committee 13 March 2019
FSA 19-03-16
Final Version