Food Safety Week to focus on ‘people who protect your plate’

BEHIND THE SCENES: The FSA directly employs more than 1,000 people across England, Wales and Northern Ireland

Under the banner of ‘the people who protect your plate’, Food Safety Week, which began on June 1, will shine a light on the people working day in, day out to make sure consumers can trust the food on their plates.

This wide range of people includes staff in abattoirs, and inspectors who visit vineyards, warehouses, cutting plants and dairies. The week will also feature staff who tackle food crime and those who help to keep people living with food allergies and intolerances safe.

Much of this work is done in partnership with local authorities, who are responsible for checking food safety and hygiene in more than 600,000 food businesses across the country like restaurants and caterers, issuing hygiene ratings under the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme. Councils also help to protect public health through their trading standards and port health work.

Jason Feeney, Chief Executive Officer of the Food Standards Agency said: “The UK has globally respected food standards, and our food and drink is rightly regarded as some of the safest in the world. More than one billion food products are sold every week.

“It’s the responsibility of every food business – from abattoirs to corner shops, Michelin-starred restaurants to your favourite take-away – to comply with food regulations. This week we want to recognise the behind-the-scenes people throughout the food chain who work hard every day of the year to make sure businesses follow the rules and our food standards remain high.”

The FSA published a series of profiles, each honouring a specific individual who embodies an area of work the agency does to protect the food system. The profiles can be seen here. They include a meat hygiene and dairy inspector, the leader of the wine inspection team, a novel food policy analyst and its food allergy and intolerance research manager.