FSA and FSS launch review into UK meat processing plants

The UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) have announced a nationwide review of all sites where meat products are processed and stored.

As part of the new initiative, FSA and FSS will be reviewing the hygiene controls and also carry out surprise inspections and audit regimes.

The FSA recommended the installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) across all the meat cutting plants and also emphasised on intelligence gathering across the industry through audit data sharing pilot programmes.

With this review process, the FSA expects to further enhance confidence levels of public as well as stakeholders in the meat industry and its regulation.

The review also aims to further improve the ability levels to identify non-compliance and implement measures to reduce the risk to public health and food safety.

The UK’s food safety authority also aims to assess the whole supply chain that is being practised in the industry, as well as further increase the awareness of circumstances and factors that lead to non-compliance.

The FSA also released an update on the inquiry by the UK’s legislative committee Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) on the standards in poultry processing as well as FSA’s investigation into 2 Sisters Food Group (2SFG).

More than 500 hours of CCTV footage was examined by the FSA as part of the investigation into the 2SFG facility, as well as audit information from major retailers.

FSA chief executive Jason Feeney said: “Our investigation found some areas for improvement but the issues were resolved promptly by the company, who cooperated 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.”