EFSA head calls for Europe-wide agreement on crisis management
The head of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has called for better co-ordination in tackling major food safety incidents in the wake of Sudan 1.
While some national food safety bodies, including the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA), insisted on a blanket recall of products contaminated with the illegal food dye, others took more limited action based on risk assessment.
"Some people in industry have argued that there should have been a more pragmatic approach in the UK based on risk assessment in terms of the threat to public health. That's not for me to comment on," said EFSA executive director Geoffrey Podger. "However, I do think that it would help to have a discussion about how we approach something like this in future to avoid these kinds of discrepancies."
He said there was a strong feeling among national assessment bodies in Europe that a more co-ordinated approach was needed.
His comments were welcomed by the UK's Food and Drink Federation (FDF), which accused the FSA of inflicting unnecessary costs on the industry and unduly alarming the public by a disproportionate approach to Sudan 1.
The deputy director general Martin Paterson said: "We understand that the FSA must respond to the consumer environment, but it can be confusing for customers and impractical for businesses that operate across a number of markets in Europe to have to respond to the same problem in a number of different ways.
"Any approach needs to include proportionality, with recalls based on some kind of risk assessment. Perhaps EFSA has a role to play in co-ordinating this."
However, the FSA's chief executive Jon Bell made "no apologies" over its handling of Sudan 1. "Do people want us to look the other way if the risk is perceived to be small enough?" he said. "What's worrying is that Sudan 1 did not suddenly appear. We had been warning people for years. We all agree that the risks were probably small, but the fact remains that Sudan 1 is a carcinogen, it's illegal in food and we shouldn't expect people to eat it."
