7 replies to this topic

[Charles.C]

Dear All,

Another Global Poll ! Easy enough to fill in hopefully.

The EU farm- to -fork strategy was initiated in 2000 particularly in response to various negative food related incidents. It has had a major “effect” regarding the approach to food safety in EU and has resulted in many new regulations.

(eg - http://ec.europa.eu/.../move/46/en.pdf. )

I also noticed this highly negative 2007 “White Paper” of US origin summarising the local situation (and including a comparitive plaudit to the EU set-up !) –

http://www.cspinet.o...swhitepaper.pdf

So, do you think yr food as purchased has got safer over the last 7-8 years?

Many factors obviously, but I was just curious over yr “geographical” perception as to the “average” safety of what you buy – eg raw oysters, rare-ish hamburgers, transfat removed items, GM tomatoes.

I selected 3 questions / countries (based on visitor statistics /observed recent posting frequencies). Hv tried to allow for “country not shown” at the end of list .

Rgds / Charles.C

[EuGeNe]

i'd put in Japan for best improvement and China for worst.

[Charles.C]

Dear Eugene,

That was a remarkably fast decision - < 8mins

Happy New Year

Charles.C

[Penard]

Hello Charles,

Quite difficult to answer, but very interesting to ask these questions!

Concerning France - the only one country I really know - the food safety improves a lot every day - so much more easy than 8 years. Sometimes when we are in charge of quality we say : 'hey be careful not to be too much carefully!' compared with a few years ago...Japanese food inspectors say we have one of the safest food industries in the world - hope so, such big investments!

Concerning USA and Canada, that's a very very good question...Canadian inspectors said me it's was difficult for them to check a real improvement - but they are very demanding!

We have to understand that a quality campaign, an 'all-quality campaign' is very expensive to reach. Furthermore, sometimes from one year to another french and european regulatory affairs don't require the same things...So that's a good thing to compare the situation 8 years ago with today! Hope it will be the same improvement in the next 8 years!

Regards,

Emmanuel.

[Simon]

I also found it a little difficult to have an answer for all three. I wanted to just say the UK has improved significantly over the last eight years especially in the retail food supply chain, the catalyst being the Food Safety Act 1990 and then onto BRC Standards. I expect now there is a legal requirement for HACCP for all the food industry things will improve here (I'm talking esp. food service) over the next eight years. There will always be the odd bad apple who let's the side down, but the trend is very positive. If you just listened to the recalls you might disagree, however, I take them as a sign of companies being more proactive in protecting the consumer along with better reporting and communication channels on recalls.

[cazyncymru]

I haven't actually voted, because to be honest i'm not sure if food is safer or not.

Manufacturers have been using HACCP for a number of years, and i think its too early to tell how the roll out to the service industries etc will work.

We could easily be misled to thinking food is / or isnt safer due to the number of food recalls there are, but the majority of these are actually "covering your arse" recalls. I have recently prepared a paper for my degree Reviewing the “Guidance notes for Food Business Operators on Food Safety, Product Withdrawal and Recall” and part of my research unearthed that the number of recalls in 2006 were double that of 2005, whilst 2005 was up 44% on 2004! Admittedly no one would instigate a recall lightly (especially if the supermarkets will "fine" you a £100k for the recall), but at the end of the day we are in the grips of a blame culture; threats from "complainers" to go to the press and bad mouth a manufacturer which could cost more than a £100k in bad publicity. Here in the UK there is a database of "professional complainers" which is maintained by ICCA ( i have details if you would like to subscribe). and they track these people and assist the police in bringing about charges where needed.

I deal with customer complaints for my company, and i would say that 99.9% of complaints are completely unfounded. to be honest i'm far to cynical to do this job and rarely offer compensation. but, when the fault is ours, i'm prepared to hold my hands up and say sorry and offer compensation.

Industries should be proud of the way that they deal with implementing food safety plans; HACCP is central to any businesses systems and this has been driven by the supermarkets, who, as i have said in other posts, ought to practice what they preach. However, when industry gets it wrong, it does it big style, and this dents consumer confidence ( i still do not want to eat anything which has the cadburys branding) and this then makes the rest of industry more jumpy, so that they would react by instigating a recall where in the past it would have been a "commercial decision" to release the product.

The only recalls that i really can't understand are the ones where they have omitted allergen advice from a label. This is so basic, surely the label designers should be informed of what is in the recipe!

[Charles.C]

Dear Cazx,

Interesting answer, regardless of the non-vote. Maybe you already felt "very" safe 8 years ago. This is a difficulty in such polls that the baseline (> possible expectation) is highly variable, eg in some environments, diarrhoea may be a way of life.

I also thought a little around the subject prior to launch.

Another perspective would be to consider the most common causes of food safety incidents.

I'm sure many people would nominate "lack of control". This may occur through various "lacks"- eg fundamental knowledge, education, transparency, opinion; by accident, blunder, non-accident, etc. It would be interesting to see a global review carried out in this way but too sensitive to happen I guess.

Actually, if one is only looking at the UK (++) market, they do attempt to quantify progress through specific targets - I remember a publication which (positively) reviews their success through targets for Salmonella reduction etc. Unfortunately I am not aware of any other country-wide similar assessments. (the US meat industry does something similar I think).

Rgds / Charles.C

[EuGeNe]

I used my country as the baseline. The reason why i voted it as "similar to 8 years ago" or in other words, "no improvement" is because in my country, (to be damn honest) im not afraid to say that it has become a culture to take the easy way out. And people dont really care

I think Japan is doing well since the folks there complaints a lot, and due to that a lot of action is taken. Believe it or not 90% of customer complaints i receive is from Japan . They are a headache indeed.

China? I've been hearing or reading a lot of news (rumours maybe) about their contaminated food or use of unhygienic ingredients. They dont have a good reputation. Or issit just me?