Food Standards Scotland Conference

Theme of the conference was 'Fresh Thinking on Food'.
FSS Chairman Ross Finnie introduced this as meaning broad enough to talk about whatever you want.

April is the third anniversary of Food Standards Scotland (FSS).
Scotland has a reputation for world class food, elements –
raw materials, environment, recipes, methods. To maintain this reputation it requires compliance with the very highest food standards.

Over 95% of food regulations emanate from EU.
One of the first documents from FSS was a five year strategy that did not envisage leaving the EU. All food businesses and FSS will need to adapt.

Sir Kenneth Calman
Distinguished career as consultant and Ex-Chief Medical Officer. Chairman of Devolution Settlement. Chancellor of University of Glasgow.

He started from a basis of being a schoolboy in days of ration books, cod liver oil. Consequences of obesity, huge waste of food.

Communication is at the heart of this. Confusion caused by too many mixed messages if you read the newspapers. Negative messages last longer e.g. MMR vaccines.
“The more you weigh the more difficult it is to be kidnapped”.

Cancer Research UK – obesity causes cancer.
BM Journal reflects vitamin C and vitamin D were fixes but now issues are more complex. A crazier – someone who knows something is bad for them but does not stop doing it.

Evidence, obesity is increasing. Obese parents make obese children. Multiple buys, labelling, eating out, advertising.
His advice – If you want to lose weight, don't eat as much!

Question is where does the state fit?
Educate professional staff in the NHS. More could be done in general practice.

Food is enjoyable, social but eating too much spoils health.
Eating out – address portion sizes by eating two starters. This needs to become acceptable in restaurants.

Q. Where is the balance between “Nanny state” and a more interventionist approach?
A. Use positive stories rather than negative ones. Negative messages put people off.

Ewan MacDonald-Russell, Head of Policy & External Affairs for the Scottish Retail Consortium. He previously was Public Affairs Advisor for Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc, and before that worked for the Scottish Youth Parliament, Scottish Parliament & Business Exchange, having started his career at the Courier Newspaper in Dundee.

Ewan leads on the development of SRC policy, collaborating with stakeholders, members, and colleagues to develop the SRC's position on relevant Scottish issues. His subject was “A Shoppers Brexit” and how it will impact business and consumers.

Universal priority has to be to prevent prices rising and supply continued.

Food prices fell in real terms from 2013 but rose sharply in late 2016 and May 2017 increased by 2%. Significant to lower income households. Retail sales growth was 0.5% per year.
Sterling fell by 10% after Brexit vote.

Tariff free trade with EU would be the best outcome for consumers and retailers. Status quo is enjoyed by both UK and EU. 79% of food imported is from the EU. New tariffs could mean higher prices e.g. 5-29% increase in beef, 6-32% Cheddar, 9-18% tomatoes, 5-10% broccoli.

Current customs and tariff arrangements
Seek avoiding disruption to trade and to consumers. Friction free trade. Planning haulage, etc.
Dover has 10,000 freight movements per day! One lorry held up for one day at a port costs £500 per day. Agreements on VAT, mutual standards and conformity checks. Brexit will create a more complex regulatory landscape. Food nutritional labelling needs to be UK wide. All this runs risk of higher prices for consumers.

The People Roadmap
A fair Brexit for consumers. UK needs workers post Brexit. 10,000 EU nationals in retail in Scotland. Special need for head office technical staff. Need an immigration settlement that encourages these people to come to UK.

Alastair Graham has worked in the Scotland office of Kantar TNS since 2008. Kantar TNS is one of the world's largest research agencies and is a leading provider of specialist research to both government and private sector clients. Since joining Kantar TNS, Alastair has provided insight to several public sector organisations, using a variety of primarily quantitative research approaches ranging from public surveys, social marketing evaluation, attitudinal and behavioural studies, and longer-term tracking research.

On behalf of Food Standards Scotland, Alastair has worked on the “Food in Scotland” consumer tracking since its inception in 2015. He described what Scotland is eating. Based on a twice per year consumer survey.

Consumer priority is a healthy balanced diet, next is concern about becoming ill through eating food, not being able to afford a healthy diet and concerns over food authenticity.

64% of consumers expect food prices to increase because of Brexit. 35% believe food availability will decline, 23% expect food safety to get worse.

Attitudes to diet.
76% consumers believe that too many eat unhealthily
91% agree that obesity is a problem.

Asked about own diet
Half claim their diet is healthy, only one in 7 think not at all healthy. Perception is that everyone else is eating unhealthily!
Agree eating too many unhealthy snacks.

Parents concerned over children's weight.
82% know that they eat an unhealthy diet

Knowledge does not translate into action with large numbers drinking sugary drinks and alcohol despite knowing it is not healthy.

When eating out, 82% believe they should have choice of portion size. 42% believe that portion sizes are too big. There is increasing support for both regulation and taxation of unhealthy foods.

Turning to food safety and food hygiene, 9 out of 10 feel that they have sufficient information to prepare meals.

On average, consumers follow just half of the recommended practices measured in survey.
76% always wash hands before preparing food
62% store poultry and raw meat on bottom shelf of fridge
46% never wash raw poultry

The public has conflicting opinions of expert advice – though most claim to have information, some are confused and potentially ignore it.

Paul Willgoss, Director of Food Technology, Marks and Spencer.
Paul was appointed Technical Director in January 2009, he is responsible for Food Safety, Quality, Integrity and Legality across all Territories within the supply chain and retail outlets.

97% own label retailer. Focus on food for now, special occasions.

This is the most challenging and exciting period of his career.
M&S risk management, consumer and the brand. Do not try to control risks but mitigate.

Reputational challenges are vast and complicated ranging from plastic, waste, salmon farming to land grabbing by Kenyan flower industry. M&S were not implicated in horse meat because the opportunity was not there in the supply chain. But were part of an industry that was implicated so M&S reacted by making shorter supply chains. DNA was only checking for Aberdeen Angus but now on all meat. Created a new audit unannounced based on integrity on work in progress not on finished products.
Reduce audit burden and duplication. Reduced costs by better risk assessment. (Do not know if Scotbeef would agree).

In 2014 Food Industry Intelligence Network (FIN) formed.
Collaboration to provide a safe space to share information. Late 2017 did same in Ireland. Working together.

Trust still needs worked on. Evidence is required, “our word is no longer good enough.”

Customer challenges on healthy choices. M&S see as indulgent but over 40% of sales are of products of at least one health attribute. EU inhibits product development because claims cannot be made on incremental health benefits like feed for cows that reduce saturated fat content of milk. Therefore it was stopped.

Public want simpler solutions to have healthier lifestyles. Balance for You range. Product reformulation only high protein and balanced carbs only claim possible because it doesn't fit with EU regs.

M&S are concerned about attracting talent into the business. Offer internments and structure graduate programmes. Technical team is taken very seriously including CPD. Recognise the quality talent required. Opportunities are broad.

In the afternoon session Eric Marin, Deputy Head of Unit G5 – Alerts, Traceability and Committees – of the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) of the European Commission was the first speaker. He coordinates the EU Food Fraud Network.

Before joining the European Commission in 1998, Mr Marin had been working for the French Ministry of Agriculture. Eric explained border checks and outlined four operational criteria for food fraud:-
1. Violation of EU Food Law
2. Intention
3. Economic gain
4. Deception of customers (not consumers)
(Fraudsters have no interest in creating public health incidents.)

Current Initiatives
1. The EU Food Fraud Network & EU co-ordinated cases
2. EU wide coordinated control plans
3. Training for food fraud – inspectors and investigators
4. New legislation on Official Controls
EU Reference Centres for food authenticity.

The new Official Controls extends to fight against fraudulent activities.

The EU Food Fraud Network is a cooperative approach based on trust. Specialised services are required with a mindset of investigation.

Expectations from specialised Food Fraud Services
Capability in intelligence, investigation (including financial investigation and cyber- crime, referring where appropriate to other police specialised services), prosecution.

Most non compliance is Mislabelling and Replacement / dilution, documentation, unapproved treatment or process (e.g. hormone use or insecticide).

More fraud is being detected now because the regulators are looking for it. There is no interest for the fraudsters to impact food safety.

Leena Räsänen has worked for the Finnish Food Safety Authority Evira since 2014. Evira ensures food safety, promotes animal health and welfare, and develops the prerequisites for plant and animal production, and plant health. Previously to this Leena worked as a Policy Officer for the European Commission.

Leena has studied the food hygiene rating systems throughout the EU. Aim to standardise the schemes throughout the EU. 11 EU countries have schemes. All were to do with compliance with food hygiene legislation. Some included labelling. Only in five countries was business to business covered.

Number of categories varied from 2 to 7. Publication of results, in seven countries online. Some displayed at the premises of the FBO. In some countries the individual reports are available.

Experience of using rating systems.
Consumers felt improved food safety.
Media benefit and public knowledge that scheme exist.
Food Business Operators had better compliance, better contact with inspectors, FBO had something tangible to achieve, low rated businesses can no longer hide.

Conclusions
Objective for rating systems
To improve hygiene and safety and to increase consumer confidence
To drive up standards
To improve transparency
To strengthen enforcement

Implications
In some countries the inspection frequency can be reduced.
An appeal system needs to be in place.

Next speaker was Dr Peter Gerner-Smidt a Danish/American MD, DSc with specialty in clinical microbiology. He is the chief of the Enteric Diseases Laboratory Branch in the Division for Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases at Centers for Disease Control.

He is leading the effort to implement whole genome sequencing for public health surveillance of bacterial foodborne infections at CDC and the United States.

Subject of his talk was Genome Sequencing and Food Safety.
Food borne pathogens are not always food borne.
Worldwide food borne incidents total 550m people and cause 230,000 deaths annually.
Food borne diseases are avoidable, Food Safety touches everybody. Outbreak surveillance is a collaboration. Outbreaks are detected, defined and confirmed by labs.
Walmart salmonella control initiative is success public-private partnership. After implementation with Walmart producers presence in Walmart poultry was 20 points below the national average of 24%. Controlling salmonella in the States is saving 270,000 illnesses and half billion dollars in medical costs.

What is Whole Genome Sequencing?
A process to determine the full genetic code of an organism.
This replaces traditional microbiology, consolidates multiple workflows into one, identification, serotyping, profiling etc.
Results are much faster and Peter claimed that the German E. coli outbreak could have been pinpointed much quicker.

Final speaker was Peter van der Logt, Principal Adviser Risk Assessment in the Biosecurity Science, Food Science and Risk Assessment Directorate of the New Zealand assessment and epidemiology.

Risk Assessment in regulatory decision making.
In NZ campylobacter and salmonella are top two food borne illnesses. Changes present a challenge for those involved.

Meat inspection has a poor cost benefit pay off.
Cost to small operators is relatively costly.
Small vocal groups with unfounded claims can create problems with beliefs such as natural is best.

Disadvantages of a classical QMRA
Labour intensive, requires specialised expertise,.

Geoff Ogle summed up praising all the speakers. He said in the words of
Mahatma Gandhi: “Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.”

Food and drink is complex and complicated. Positive language is important. Science and evidence is key. Attitude and underpinning beliefs – people don't believe that they need to change. This needs addressed if gains are going to be made.

Individuals need to make individual changes.