On Tuesday (4th June), the Food Standards Agency announced the results of a review into the FSA handling of the Horsemeat Scandal, which reached its height in February this year.

The scandal erupted when meat from horses and pigs was found in burgers labelled as containing 100 percent beef, being manufactured for a number of retailers in the UK and Ireland, including Tesco. The scandal deepened as issues of similar contamination were discovered across the EU, including the revelation that pig meat had found its way into meat products labelled as Halal.

At an FSA board meeting, Professor Pat Troop presented the key findings of her review of the Agency's handling of the scandal. Overall, Professor Troop commended the Agency's handling of the large-scale food crisis. She said the "incident was very unusual in both its scale and profile."

However, FSA has come in for criticism from other quarters over its decision to delay improved testing on horsemeat three months prior to the scandal. However, many food policy commentators acknowledged that the Agency has suffered from funding cutbacks.

Even so, the number of horses slaughtered for meat in the UK has doubled in recent years, with over 9,000 animals killed at five approved abattoirs last year. Most UK horsemeat is exported to mainland Europe. Although at the height of the 'horsemeat' crisis, officials warned that unapproved imported horsemeat could be contaminated with the banned substance 'bute', the only issues of bute contamination that were uncovered came from a number of British animals slaughtered in England and exported to France.  

The 'adulteration' of burger meat, which triggered the range of subsequent discoveries across Europe, was first uncovered by Irish watchdog FSAI, although the contaminated burgers were being supplied to stores across the UK as well as Ireland.

FSA investigator makes recommendations   

Professor Troop said that, over the course of her review, she had spoken to FSA staff, Government departments and Ministers, members of the food industry (both trade bodies and retailers), local authority bodies, consumer advocacy groups and other stakeholders.

Based on her findings, she highlighted four key points to consider:

• The need for improved intelligence sharing and analysis across the sector
• The need for the FSA to strengthen its Major Incident Plan
• Improved clarity of the role of Government departments in large complex incidents
• A review of the FSA's powers and the use of framework agreements and codes of conduct, to enable FSA to act faster and with greater authority in future

Professor Troop warned that, unless intelligence gathering and sharing are improved, the current food system will be vulnerable to further shocks. She said that virtually all stakeholders she engaged with claimed they could not have predicted the 'horsemeat scandal'. However, she said that signs were there months before the scandal broke and that, "if people had joined the dots they might have spotted it."

She said that, at crucial stages of the supply chain and with high value products like beef, there is a lack of transparency and that this carries potential risks.  

FSA Chair Jeff Rooker said, "The FSA welcomes this report and we will review Professor Troop's findings in detail. This is the biggest food incident ever handled by the Food Standards Agency and it is important that we learn lessons from our handling – both what worked well and areas that need to be improved."

FSA Chief Executive Catherine Brown said the professor's findings echoed earlier evaluation of the Agency's performance by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee. She continued, "I am particularly struck by Professor Troop's thoughts on how better collaboration and co-ordination of the response to future major incidents may be achieved through the collaborative approaches of industry codes of conduct and framework agreements with local authorities, in line with our commitment to treat legislation as a last resort."

Catherine Brown noted during the meeting that efforts had been made to improve intelligence and communication at FSA since March.

The final report will be made available at the end of the month on the FSA website.