Horse meat: final report on FSA response

Professor Pat Troop has completed her independent review of the Food Standards Agency’s response to the adulteration of processed beef products with horse and pork meat and DNA. The final report has been published today.

Professor Troop presented her key findings to the FSA Board on 4 June, and the final report summarises her recommendations.

The recommendations include:

• the need for improved intelligence across the food industry
• the need for the FSA to strengthen its major incident plan
• improved clarity of the role of Government departments in large, complex incidents
• review of the FSA’s powers and the use of framework agreements and codes of conduct

FSA Chair Jeff Rooker and FSA Chief Executive Catherine Brown commented on the review’s findings when they were presented to the Board in June. Details of this can be found in an earlier news story, which you can access via a link below.

A full written response to Professor Troop’s final report will be published by the FSA next week, prior to a discussion of the report by the FSA Board at its meeting on 16 July.

An FSA report summarising the incident and the Agency’s subsequent actions and investigations has also been published and is available at a link below.

• FSA 13/07/04 – External Review of the Horsemeat incident – Pat Troop Report (pdf 227KB)
• FSA 13/07/04 – FSA investigation report(pdf 185KB)
• Horse meat review – key findings
  News story 4 June 2013