The Food Standards Agency expects this year to meet its target of reducing outbreaks of food poisoning by 20% from 2000 levels, according to the agency's chief executive Dr Jon Bell.
In 2000, when the FSA was formed, there were 1.4m reported food poisoning incidents, which cost the nation £1.5bn, said Bell. The FSA set itself a target of reducing by 20% incidents caused by the top five major bacteria by the end of 2005. By the end of 2003, there had been a 15% reduction in incidents, and while last year's figures are not yet published, the positive trend is expected to continue. "We are quietly confident and expect to meet the 20% target for 2005," said Bell.
Giving the Society of Food Hygiene Technology annual lecture last week, Bell also strongly defended the FSA's handling of the costly Sudan 1 contamination incident earlier this year, which resulted in the recall of over 600 food products at a cost of many hundreds of millions of pounds.
However, he admitted that lessons had been learnt following Sudan 1 about the need to work more closely with the industry and other experts and "share intelligence better". This, said Bell, would be brought into practice through the newly created Incidents Task Force. But he reminded manufacturers there had been around 300 hazard warnings issued about Sudan 1 in the two years leading up to the major recalls last February.
He admitted the extent of the incident caused largely by the widespread use of Worcester sauce made with contaminated chilli powder had "caught us by surprise". And he congratulated manufacturers and retailers for the way they responded to the "major logistical problem" of getting affected products off supermarket shelves.
At its height, around one in eight FSA staff were deployed to deal with the Sudan 1 crisis, Bell reported. Although the risk to health of the Sudan 1 contamination was "extremely small", as an illegal substance is not allowed at any level of contamination, Bell claimed the FSA had a duty to insist on products being recalled to ensure continued public confidence in the agency.
Bell acknowledged it was difficult to balance risk management against the public's perception of risk, and used earlier incidents such as the BSE outbreak in cattle to illustrate his point. He said the precautionary measures put in place when it first occurred - removing specified risk material such as spinal cord and stopping cattle over thirty months from entering the food chain - were effective in allaying people's fears about contracting the fatal disease variant CJD.
While there were 2,000 reported cases of BSE in cattle in 2000, this had fallen to 90 last year. "So far there have been three deaths this year from vCJD, compared with 28 in 2000," said Bell. The recent lifting of the OTM rules, which were "felt to be no longer proportionate", would save £1bn in compensation payments to farmers over the next five years, he added.
Bell claimed the FSA had fulfilled its role in reassuring the public on matters of food safety. "We have seen a steady decline in people's concerns about food safety since [the FSA was formed] … people seem to trust what we do." But he added that the death of a young boy caused by the recent E.coli outbreak in South Wales was a "tragic reminder of the importance of food hygiene"
However, with recent advice coming from the European Food Safety Authority about possible dangers to health from eating chicken with avian flu "a potential risk had turned into a scare overnight", he added, with graphic newspaper headlines about "killer chickens"