New tool aims to relieve the world of contaminated food
15-Apr-2010 By Rick Pendrous
A worldwide open access alert system developed by a team of scientists from Kingston University in South London could simplify and speed up the identification of major emerging sources of food contaminated with harmful bacteria and toxins.
Insufficient evidence for biltong guidance
15-Apr-2010 By Rick Pendrous
Experts on the Food Standards Agency's (FSA's) Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food (ACMSF) have decided not to issue guidance on the production and storage of biltong in the UK because too many uncertainties exist about...
15-Apr-2010
With record levels of national debt and a general election looming, the FSA faces an uncertain future. Rick Pendrous reports on changing times
Health Protection Agency identifies the listeria-prone
06-Apr-2010 By Rick Pendrous
Incidents of food poisoning associated with Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) are higher among certain groups of people, according to recent findings from the Health Protection Agency (HPA). These include certain ethnic groups, older people and pregnant women...
29-Mar-2010 By Elaine Watson
Spirulina, the blue colour from algae used in Nestlé’s Smarties, is one of 10 substances used to colour food that faces an uncertain future as its legal status is scrutinised.
FSA gives thumbs up to nanotechnology database
15-Mar-2010
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) Board last week accepted a recommendation in a House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report to compile a...
Caterers question calorie labelling scheme
15-Mar-2010
Caterers have continued to question the feasibility of rolling out calorie labelling throughout the foodservice sector as the Food Standards Agency...
Flexible front-of-pack labels under fire
08-Mar-2010
Consumer groups and retailers have criticised new Food Standards Agency (FSA) proposals that allow a ‘flexible approach’ to the introduction of...
01-Mar-2010
Establishing thresholds for adventitious presence of milk, peanuts and egg will take time
01-Mar-2010
A picture of the Conservative Party's overall food policy is hard to find. Apart from aiming to move the areas related to nutrition and diet from the...
Are date marks approaching their sell by date?
01-Mar-2010
I was pleased to hear that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) is drawing up new guidance on the use of 'best before' and 'use by' dates. Critics of the...
01-Mar-2010
Launching the Food Standards Agency's (FSA's) science and evidence strategic plan for the next five years at an event in London last month, chairman...
FSA uses proteomics to test food authenticity
22-Feb-2010 By Rod Addy
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is investigating the use of proteomics for testing the misdescription of foods as part of its food authenticity...
Beware of climate change fatigue
08-Feb-2010 By Rick Pendrous
Consumer trust in science has been seriously undermined by recent adverse publicity regarding reporting errors in climate change studies, the...
FSA to show additives in their true legal colours
02-Feb-2010
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is preparing to test the legal status of substances used to colour food as part of a road-testing exercise for...
Crack down on Campylobacter in retail chicken
01-Feb-2010 By Rick Pendrous
The Food Standards Agency’s (FSA’s) chief executive Tim Smith wants supermarkets to provide incentives to their suppliers to reduce the high...
Country of origin labels on sausages confuses consumers
14-Jan-2010 By Rick Pendrous
Consumers are confused by country of origin labelling on processed meat such as sausages, according to research published by the Food Standards...
Coming soon: safer ready-to-eat food firms
11-Jan-2010 By Rod Addy
The Chilled Food Association (CFA) is working with other stakeholder groups to promote stronger levels of hygiene enforcement among suppliers of...
FSA under pressure to give stricter egg advice
07-Dec-2009 By Rick Pendrous
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is coming under increasing pressure to strengthen its advice to caterers about the sourcing of ‘safer’ eggs from...
Greggs rises to the salt-reduction challenge
30-Nov-2009 By Rick Pendrous
High street bakery retailer Greggs hopes that radical new product reformulation technologies it is working on will help it meet tough new nutritional...
FSA may be on Tories’ ‘bonfire of the quangos’
09-Nov-2009 By Elaine Watson
Fresh questions have been raised over the future role and remit of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) under a Tory government, after the Conservative...
26-Oct-2009 By Rick Pendrous
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is to investigate the reasons behind poor food safety culture in some food businesses, which can result in serious...
Experts challenge pilot aspartame study
14-Sep-2009 By Rick Pendrous
The pilot study launched by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) into the health effects of individuals “self-reporting as sensitive” to aspartame has...
More melamine-style scares ahead, warns FSA
07-Sep-2009 By Elaine Watson
There is no room for complacency when it comes to food contamination, with another melamine or Sudan 1 potentially lurking around the corner unless...
28-Aug-2009
Derided as a fad favoured by hippies and middle class goody two shoes in the seventies, organics have come a long way since those early years of...
New code for marketing children's food
28-Aug-2009
As the government proceeds with the development of a voluntary code of practice for the marketing and promotion of food and drink to children, the...
FSA’s defence of processed meat compounds consumer confusion
24-Aug-2009 By Rod Addy
The Provision Trade Federation (PTF) has criticised the Food Standards Agency (FSA) for adding to confusion in a statement defending ham against...
24-Jul-2009 By Rick Pendrous
Private sector and alternative funding sources are sought as budgets are squeezed
20-Jul-2009 By Rick Pendrous
Food authenticity is again under scrutiny after a TV programme aired on BBC 1 on July 14 described the use of pork and beef proteins to bulk out...
15-Jul-2009
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) welcomes the announcement of the appointment of Lord Rooker as its new chair by the Secretary of State for...
Seafood - Sponsor: Seafish
30-Jun-2009
Seafish, the authority on seafood, works across all sectors of the seafood industry to promote good quality, sustainable seafood. Its research and...
Trade Talk
30-Jun-2009
The nanny state has past its 'sell by' date
Nano definition must be pinned down, warns FSA
27-Jun-2009 By Elaine Watson
If a legal definition of nanomaterials is to be established, it must be more precise than what is currently on the table, the Food Standards Agency...
Food Standards Agency under financial pressure
08-Jun-2009 By Rick Pendrous
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) faces some difficult challenges as its annual budget comes under pressure, its chief executive has warned.Speaking to...
Milk-related allergen recalls down 32% in 2008
01-Jun-2009 By Elaine Watson
There was a sharp drop in milk-related allergen-based recalls in 2008, although incidents relating to soya, cereals and nuts other than peanuts and...
26-May-2009 By Rick Pendrous
Industry welcomes change after criticising 'impossible' reduction targets for 2012
26-May-2009
Events take a turn for the ludicrous
26-May-2009 By Rod Addy
Evidence-based policy making will be key
FSA publishes 2012 salt targets
18-May-2009 By Rod Addy
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has published its revised salt reduction targets for 2012 for 80 categories of foods.The FSA said the new voluntary...
FSA tackles date marking issues
18-May-2009 By Elaine Watson
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is tackling the thorny issue of date marking on food at a stakeholders meeting on June 3.
Food science research centre to close in July
05-May-2009 By Rick Pendrous
British food science research faces another serious blow unless a new home can be found for the Food Refrigeration and Process Engineering Research...
27-Apr-2009
Baffled. There's no other word to describe how my senior colleagues and I feel at the way the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has handled its review of...
Cost of meat safety inspections to rise
27-Apr-2009 By Rick Pendrous
Abattoirs and meat cutting plants face steep rises in the charges imposed for safety inspections from 2011. The increases are the Food Standards...
Natural isn't always good
27-Apr-2009
The Food Standards Agency's list of firms producing products free from the 'Southampton Six' food colourings continues to grow. The colours are:...
FSA to debate Meat Hygiene Service costs increase
20-Apr-2009 By Rod Addy
Proposals to increase industry charges for Meat Hygiene Service (MHS) official controls work call for an extra £1.2M from the meat industry from...
Axe hangs over jobs at Food Standards Agency
06-Apr-2009 By Rick Pendrous
Employees of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) are anxiously awaiting the outcome of restructuring instigated by chief executive Tim Smith, which is...
01-Apr-2009 By Rod Addy
Negotiating the way through the food and drink labelling maze is no mean feat for manufacturers. Rod Addy reports on the ongoing debate
Do you check the label?
01-Apr-2009
I was recently interviewed for a BBC Panorama special on food labelling. The more questions I answered, the more I felt that the current regime was...
30-Mar-2009 By Rick Pendrous
Calls for mandatory disclosure of pathogen test results by UK companies have followed the creation of a US food safety working group after the...
Food inspection failures allowed Wales E.coli outbreak
19-Mar-2009 By Rick Pendrous
Food safety inspectors face scathing criticism from professor Hugh Pennington’s public inquiry report into the largest outbreak of Escherichia coli...
