The Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland are today publishing details of a major review into the sites where meat products are processed and stored in the UK. This includes a comprehensive review of hygiene controls and unannounced inspections and audit regimes.

Jason Feeney and Geoff Ogle, Chief Executives of the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland respectively, jointly commented:

“We are concerned about recent instances of companies breaching hygiene rules. People rightly expect food businesses to keep to the rules, rules designed to keep consumers safe and to sustain public trust in food - and food businesses have a duty to follow the regulations. Our review will be far reaching and thorough and we will announce our initial findings in June.”

“We are pleased that the meat industry representatives who we met with have pledged their full and effective engagement with the review.”

The review being launched today will aim to:

• Increase public and stakeholder confidence in the meat industry and its regulation
• Improve the ability to identify non-compliance and take prompt action to minimise the risk to public health and food safety
• Assess how the industry currently operates across the whole supply chain.
• Increase awareness of circumstances and factors which can lead to non-compliance

The scope of the review will incorporate:

• All types of cutting plants (red meat, white meat and game)
• How the current legislation works and the guidance supporting it
• How the ‘official controls’ are carried out which must be followed to ensure compliance with hygiene legislative requirements (this includes audits, inspections, sampling and surveillance)
• The roles and responsibilities of food businesses, regulators and assurance bodies
• How incidents are managed and responded to

The recent investigation into 2 Sisters Food Group has been extensive and thorough and looked across their poultry sites.

500 hours of CCTV from the site were examined along with audit information from major retailers. The company voluntarily ceased production at one site whilst changes were made and staff re-trained. The FSA have had a permanent presence at their cutting plants for the last four months.

Jason Feeney, Chief Executive of the Food Standards Agency said:

“Our investigation found some areas for improvement but the issues were resolved promptly by the company, who co-operated fully, and at no point did we find it necessary to take formal enforcement action.”

“The business has made a wide range of improvements across all their sites to improve processes. They are already publishing the outcomes of all their audits and are in the process of installing high quality CCTV across their estate that we will have full access to. These are measures we would like the whole industry to adopt.”

The FSA report, published today, can be read here.