Petition Hand In, Latest Public Opinion on Meat & 2.4 million cases of food borne illness each year
We met with Emily Miles, the Chief Executive of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Martin Evans who is currently head of Field Operations at the Agency on Wednesday 12thFebruary 2020.
We discussed our concerns with Emily and also had some photographs taken with her, in the 15 minutes that she was there. We continued our discussions with Martin Evans afterwards.
I would like to be upbeat about the meeting, but I am not, as they appear to have no intention of bringing Meat Hygiene Inspectors (MHI’s) etc. back in house as has been done in Scotland by Food Standard Scotland (FSS) last year.
Their argument for this was that Scotland has a lot fewer meat Hygiene Inspectors etc so therefore it was a lot easier for FSS to do this.
About 5 years ago, the FSA had 63% directly employed to 37% contractor employed MHI’s. We are informed that the FSA stated previously they wanted to have 50% directly employed with 50% employed by a private company. They made no promise on this when we handed the petition in at this meeting. Martin Evans said it will be evaluated again at some point. (Hopefully by his successor, as he is retiring in March).
We believe that there were about 30 new recruits last year directly employed by the FSA. The FSA are currently advertising for 28 new trainee Meat Hygiene Inspectors for 2020.
Martin Evans stated that the Agency would send us responses and information regarding our questions at the meeting. To date we have not received this
From a consumer point of view, any weakening of enforcement or regulation in this area, would be a disaster. The meat scares etc in the last few years clearly highlight this and show that we need more truly independent inspections.
Unfortunately, Council and FSA cuts have led to heighten consumer risk in all areas across the food industry.
The idea that private companies should be allowed to mark their own work or use industry accredited firms such as Red Tractor or the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has proven, in some of these scares, that it offers little consumer protection and allows less public scrutiny as their audits are not made public, unlike they would be with any government body. This is not only important for food safety, but is important in relation to food fraud.
The latest Polling by Savanta ComRes published yesterday, surveyed 2,015 British adults from 24 to 27 January 2020 for the trade union Unison indicated.
More than four fifths (81%) of the British public are worried about meat quality standards being relaxed by ministers in pursuit of trade deals with the US and the rest of the world.
Over half (52%) believe the government regulations for meat quality standards should be tightened following the UK’s departure from the EU.
The link to this is below.
https://www.unison.org.uk/news/article/2020/02/public-fears-lowering-meat-standards-future-us-trade-deals-says-unison/
On the 20th February this year FSA research suggested new higher estimates for the role of food in UK illness.
A scientific review by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) estimating that around 2.4 million cases of foodborne illness occur every year in the UK has been published. This is up from the 2009 estimate of approximately one million.
Professor Guy Poppy, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Food Standards Agency, said:
“This work gives us a much better idea of the role of food in the spread of all infectious intestinal disease in the UK. However, this does not mean more people are getting unwell, only that we estimate food is responsible for more existing cases than previously thought”
The Food Standards Agency Consolidated Annual Report and Accounts 2018/19 For the year ended 31 March 2019 which is their latest annual report, clearly indicated on page 20 that Campylobacter, the most reported foodborne illness is higher that when the Agency was formed in 2000 despite some reductions since then.
Also, reported cases of Listeria monocytogenes are now higher than in 2000 and are starting to rise again from some reductions in previous years.
It also shows the reported human cases of Salmonella was reduced significantly by 2013, but are again starting to increase from the previous year.
The reported human cases of Escherichia coli O157 is also starting to increase from the previous year after showing some signs of starting to reduce.
Foodborne illness is known to be widely under reported. The FSA state in this annual report that “Only a minority of cases are reported, and samples sent for lab analysis”.
I will leave you make your own decision, as to whether or not “more people are getting unwell”.
Thank you all for your continued support and please share the petition if you can.