The head of the Food Standards Agency has said that the body set up to prevent another horse meat scandal will be mothballed unless the Government provides more funding.
The National Food Crime Unit was set up amid some fanfare in 2013 as a division of the Food Standards Agency. It followed an inquiry by food safety expert Professor Chris Elliott into the presence of horse meat in samples purporting to be beef or lamb, which found evidence of extensive fraud in industrial food supply chains. So far, the unit has not not made any major prosecutions.
The head of the Food Standards Agency, Heather Hancock, has now told The Grocer magazine that the £2m a year budget is not enough to allow the unit to continue to operate effectively. 'The first two years were meant to be about information gathering, and [the] team have built up a network, gained a lot of trust, there's more willingness to let them know, and local authorities and police forces have recognised there is some expertise they can draw on,' Ms Hancock said. 'But if we really want to tackle food crime we've got to go beyond phase one. And I'm really clear, unless we get more money we're not doing it.' Read more here.
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Published Friday 22 September 2017
Sustain: Sustain The alliance for better food and farming advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, enrich society and culture and promote equity.
