Foodlaw-Reading
Dr David Jukes, The University of Reading, UK
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FSA News item, 30 June 2014
A copy of the report is available on this site. See: FSA Incident Report 2013
The Food Standards Agency has today published its latest Annual Report of Food Incidents. The report highlights the wide range of incidents we have managed during 2013. Last year, a total of 1,562 food and environmental contamination incidents in the UK were reported to and investigated by us. This figure was 42 down on 2012 but higher than in many previous years.
Main contributors
The three largest contributors to these incidents were microbiological contamination (21%), environmental contamination (15%) and natural chemical contamination (9%). More information about these is given below.
Microbiological contamination
This was the only category of incidents that have been consistently increasing over time, from 147 in 2006 to 322 in 2013. In 2013, more than 30% of microbiological contamination incidents were due to salmonella.
Environmental contamination
The source of almost three-quarters of environmental incidents in 2013 was fire. Most of the remainder were caused by spills and leaks.
Chemical contamination
Aflatoxins, found mainly in peanuts and groundnuts, accounted for 56% of natural chemical contamination incidents in 2013. Most of the other natural chemical contamination incidents were related to algal toxins in shellfish.
