UK is at risk of food scandals, warns safety expert

UK is at risk of food scandals as it is isolated from intelligence over food supply chains in Europe, country's top expert has warned.

Professor Chris Elliott, who chaired the government inquiry into the scandal in which horsemeat was substituted for beef in a range of products in 2013, has said that Brexit meant the UK no longer benefited from membership and intelligence briefings of the EU Agri-Food Fraud Network (FFN), which helps coordinate activities concerning cross-border food fraud. It also no longer has full access to the EU’s rapid alert system for food and feed (RASFF) but does receive alerts for issues directly affecting the UK.

“We have lost a lot of control over the food we consume, particularly food produced outside the UK," The Guardian quoted Elliott, who added that there is now no sharing of intelligence on fraud that is happening or suspected to be happening on mainland Europe.

Elliott considers he was given more information from personal contacts in the FFN than “the entire UK government” now has access to.

He said the UK also no longer benefits from the intelligence from checks conducted in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, one of the biggest food ports in the world. UK ports also do not have the same level of infrastructure or facilities to ensure similarly robust checks for food imported directly from third countries or from the EU.

"Local authorities have massively cut back on food surveillance. There are private audits, but many are not fit for purpose," he added, saying that “the impact of Brexit has taken us back.”

The warning came a month after it emerged after an investigation by Farmers Weekly that a criminal investigation was under way into allegations that a rogue meat supplier falsely labelled large quantities of foreign pork as British. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said there is no evidence it was unsafe or there was an increased risk to consumers.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that the government backs British farmers, which is why we implement strict biosecurity controls on high-risk imports to ensure no products cross our borders which could pose a risk to the industry.

“We stringently monitor emerging outbreaks across the globe, assess any risks to our food supply chain and work closely with the National Food Crime Unit to tackle food fraud while promoting the sale of home-grown high-quality British produce. We also have powers to check and seize non-compliant products, and will not hesitate to do so," The Guardian quoted the spokesperson as saying.