Food Standards Agency ‘sorry’ for email error

The emails were repeats of recent alerts, according to a spokeswoman, who blamed the error on a “technical glitch”​. See box below for the FSA’s apology to subscibers.

Only one food safety alert – a recall of Bakkavor chilled dessert products – was intended to be issued yesterday.

Technical error​

But the technical problem resulted in many old alerts – some dating back to early last month – being sent in error.

Among the old email alerts dispatched were warnings about: Morrisons’ Busy Bee Cake, due to the possible presence of salmonella, Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s recall of canned pasta products, on fears of rubber contamination and a recall of Mattessons’ chicken product sparked by the suspicion of plastic contamination.

Bakkavor’s recall ​

The ‘genuine alert’ sent yesterday concerned Bakkavor’s recall of some its chocolate eclairs and profiteroles, as a precautionary measure because the products might contain small pieces of metal. The affected products have been supplied to Sainsbury and Morrisons.

Meanwhile, this is the second time this week that the FSA has found its communications to be the subject of scrutiny. Yesterday, the trade group the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers slammed the agency for supporting the meat-free week campaign in a post on the social networking site Twitter.

The controversial tweet was later removed.