Manufacturers and retailers not solely responsible for safety

Hilary Ross, partner with business law firm DWF, told Food Manufacture’s​ webinar – Horsemeat: learning the lessons of an avoidable crisis – that misconceptions about who was responsible for food safety and quality had contributed to the crisis being “escalated out of all proportion”.​

Ross said:“Retailers and manufacturers are important pillars to provide a stable platform for food quality and safety but they are not the only pillars.”​ Other equally important groups were needed to “provide a truly stable platform to deliver food safety and quality”,​ she told the webinar, sponsored by DWF.

Those groups included: lawmakers, scientists, regulators and consumers.

Lawmakers – predominantly in the EU headquarters, but other member states too – should play a key role. It was their responsibility to ensure laws were “sensible, proportionate and provided attainable results”. ​They should also co-ordinate information across Europe.

‘One glaring hole’​

There was “one glaring hole”​ in relation to the EU strategy, she said. “We have overlooked the key role of science in helping the manufacturers, the retailers and the regulators deliver the outcomes required by the legislation,”​ Ross added. “There needed to be agreed testing methodologies applied across the EU and agreed analytical limits in detection and quantitative methods. If we do not have this, our retailers and our manufacturers cannot put in place a sensible due diligence system that is workable across the EU as a whole.”​

Science was also a key platform in relation to food safety and quality. Since food fraud was rarely capable of visual detection, science was needed to determine what can be identified and monitored.

Regulators too played an important role in providing food safety and quality. Co-ordination was one part of the role, but monitoring and enforcement were key activities.

Consumers had to understand the impact of food demands. “They have to understand the impact of modern demands – of wanting seasonal foods at all times of the year at bargain prices and how this influences the food chain and the foods delivered to their plates,” ​she said.

‘Key gatekeepers’​

Meanwhile, the horsemeat crisis had rightly focused attention on food firms’ due diligence practices. “While I don’t believe manufacturers and retailers are the sole custodians of food safety and quality, they are certainly key gatekeepers in relation to having due diligence systems in place to try to achieve the desired outcomes of the food framework,”​ said Ross.

The crisis had raised the bar on due diligence and many firms were realising that legal due diligence compliance was not enough. “What companies are looking at now is what due diligence looks like after the horsemeat crisis and how to protect the brand above and beyond legal due diligence,” ​said Ross.

Andrew Rhodes, operations director at the Food Standards Agency, agreed: “The bar has definitely moved. Instead of a reliance on contract there is a need to prove that what you are buying is what you are actually getting.”​

Professor Tony Hines, head of food security and crisis management at Leatherhead Food Research, said: “I think the bar has been raised significantly. We are looking not just at our suppliers but our supplier’s suppliers. We are talking about shorter food chains, inspections, audits, far greater in-depth verification and absolute confirmation that what we are buying and using is what we believe it to be – so significant changes across the entire UK food chain.”​

Ross concluded: “While our legal system is not a council of perfection, I believe overall it is fit for purpose. To make it work and to make it practical for the retailers, food manufacturers and inspectors, we need to look at the gap that is science and to work out how we have a level playing field.”​

You can listen again to the free one-hour webinar, complete with question and answer session, here​.