Annual report of incidents

The FSA strives to inform consumers and protect them from food risks – this is one of the reasons the Agency came into being. One of the most important ways we do this is by working with industry, local authorities and consumers when there are problems associated with the food chain. 

We have just published our second Annual Report of Food Incidents. This report shows that during 2007 the Agency handled 1,312 incident investigations. You will probably remember some of these, such as the bird flu outbreaks in East Anglia and the grounding of the MCS Napoli off the south coast.  Behind the scenes though, there are often less high profile incidents.  For example, over the Christmas period last year we helped prevent consumers eating mince pies containing rubber, and in September we worked with the food industry to remove cereals containing insects from the shelves.

Food businesses are responsible for the safety of the food they produce, but, even in the best run food business, accidents can happen and mistakes can be made. When these occur we'll work closely with food businesses and local authorities to remove affected products from the shelves and keep consumers informed. 

We are also working to make it easier for companies to report incidents; we launched an enhanced online incident form last year and this has allowed food and feed businesses to notify the Agency of product recalls or withdrawals more quickly and easily.  The Agency is also developing workshops for local authorities and industry to encourage them to use the Agency and its systems to help deal with any problems.  So, while our aim is to help prevent food incidents happening in the first place, I hope the report enables readers to see the work we do to help protect consumers when things do go wrong.