There are fears that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) may have set itself an impossible task of reducing the incidents of reported foodborne illness by 20 per cent within the next three years.

The FSA's advertising campaign appears to be working, but the benefits of this could mean more people will report food poisoning incidents and the higher figures may mask the campaign's success.

There was, however, no hint of this when Claire Boville, foodborne illness strategy coordinator at the FSA, outlined the farm–to–fork strategy to reduce food poisoning incidents.

The strategy was developed by looking at food areas which were the most frequent cause of food poisoning. Poultry is the main issue and controlling campylobacter is a big challenge.

The second part of the strategy, Boville said, was based on promoting best practice and HACCP, and is to be introduced by 2004.

Small businesses are to be particularly targeted as they require access to experts, so the FSA is considering the funding of consultants to help with training.

The practical aspects of best practice in HACCP management were outlined by Heather Bone, group quality audit manager with Nestle UK. Nestle had initial problems with its HACCP studies because, in isolation, they were not successful.

The company decided to take a fuller approach, which included reviewing GMP, hygiene and cleaning procedures.

Tate & Lyle Europe's quality manager, Simon Houghton–Dodd, talked about his company's customer driven quality initiative which is designed to improve quality and food safety, and to make employees more aware of customers and products.

The initiative, Houghton–Dodd said, was cross–functional, focusing on major customer issues.

Topics