Cross Party Food Group – 29 January 2014

Chair John Scott MSP introduced the speakers on the subject of food authenicity. Firstly Charles Milne, Director of FSA in Scotland. Horsemeat focused thoughts on it but there was a programme of authenticity before horsemeat.

Lamb Curry being beef 15 to 20% of samples in Scotland Manuka Honey more sold in UK than New Zealand produces. Here there is a problem with product definition as well.
Olive oil, more virgin sold than produced.
Haddock substituted with other white fish and fish fraud from non sustainable sources as well.
Further problems include added water on prawns and scallops? New potatoes have always been passed off.

Horsemeat not a food safety incident. Bean sprout killed Germans and made thousands ill yet did not get massive publicity.
Horsemeat undermined trust between consumer and production. Detection was a success. Only one in Irish sample caused the cross Europe investigation.
More legislation does not help. Would just create opportunities.
Food trade has changed, how do we monitor where food is not actually being handled.
Penalties are less that drug dealing or other organised crime.

Public reaction: Firstly a joke but as soon as supplied by a government institution it was an outcry. Bute was the only food safety issue since given the volume of horsemeat found it had to have come through normal lines. No Scottish businesses were implicated in substitution.

Need to be smart in surveillance, sharing information more readily.
Dutch discovered the source through forensic accounting – business sold more meat that it bought.

If a deal is too good to be true and that has to be borne in mind across the food chain. Patrick Harvey MSP suggested that scares need to make changes to our food culture.

The New Food Body will give FSA a strengthened powers of sampling, holding and penalising. Plans are to make food authenticity part of food law and the responsibility of FSA.

Second speaker was Andrea Martinez-Inchausti, Deputy Director Food Policy of the British Retail Consortium who represents BRC in Europe. Authenticity has been an industry problem as well. BRC has a Surveillance Working Group made up of specialists. Basmati rice was a frequent problem. Additives from China are a problem since retailers are claiming free from additives. Philippines are the main suppliers of pineapple but after the storms there, there was no reduction of supplies but the pineapple juice was watered down and other juices were added.

BRC is examining supply chain. Retailers are looking all the way down the chain, not just one back.
BRC sees rethink of risk based Official Control as important.
BRC owns the biggest global safety standard that will cover traders.

Fraud will affect food but does happen across all categories.

BRC stressed that consumers wanted choice and consumers reactions cannot always be predicted.

I raised that point that FBOs set out to do their best to produce authentic food but there is potential to get caught out in testing because of carry over. Questioned the emphasis of testing, fear that EHO s will concentrate on searching for morsels of pork on steak mince.

CM said that public acceptability needs to be tested. He added that he was conscious of the difficulties that butchers face and there will be consultation with our industry on the subject.

BRC said that they had challenged FSA on the ability to test fat and CT levels in mince.

CM explained isotope testing. When Scottish cattle is fed soya concentrates from abroad this makes test results only 90% accurate. The testing will act as a screen. FSA will work with QMS on Scotch Beef isotope testing to profile.