Food producers urged to act on contamination risk

Leo Parkington and Zoe Betts of Pinsent Masons, who specialise in commercial contracts and food safety respectively, were commenting after the UK government rated food supply contamination as four out of five for likelihood and three out of five for impact in its recently updated national risk register. This means it considers the likelihood of food supply contamination as being between 5% and 25% and that its impact would be ‘moderate’ on a scale that ranges from ‘minor’ to ‘catastrophic’ – though it acknowledged that “the public health impact of food incidents can vary widely”.

As well as health impacts, the government highlighted the potential for food contamination to have production and marketing implications for businesses in the sector, and how it might also affect consumer confidence, lead to “lost markets” as a result, and spur “adaptive purchasing behaviours”.

The government said: “The contamination of food products with pathogens such as Norovirus, Salmonella, Listeria or Escherichia Coli (E. coli) represents a significant threat to public health. Contamination may result from cross-contamination, poor hygiene, inappropriate storage or contamination with animal waste.”

Last year, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) estimated that cases of foodborne illness had risen to around 2.4 million annually, up by around one million on estimates made in 2009.

Parkington and Betts said that food supply contamination presents a regulatory and reputational risk for businesses. They said there had been a number of high-profile incidents over the years.

In 1996, 21 people died after consuming contaminated meat supplied by a butcher’s shop in Wishaw in Scotland – at the time, the world’s worst recorded E. coli outbreak, while in 2008, six infants were confirmed to have died, and more than 54,000 others treated for infections, linked to melamine contamination of infant formula and related dairy products in China. In 2011, 53 people died, and almost 4,000 others fell ill, following a shiga-toxin-producing E. coli outbreak that mainly affected people in Germany and France. Organic fenugreek seeds imported from Egypt and used to produce sprouted seeds was considered the likely source of the outbreak.

More recent cases include a Salmonella outbreak in the US in 2015 which was linked to cucumbers imported from Mexico, which impacted more than 900 people across 40 US states and led to six deaths and more than 200 other people being hospitalised, while in 2017 and 2018 the largest recorded Listeria outbreak, linked to processed meats supplied by a company in South Africa, was recorded.

Parkington said: “The publication of the updated national risk register should spur food producers to make sure they know their supply chain – contamination could occur in improper production, processing, distribution and preparation – and put in place appropriate rights in their contracts to manage the impact of contamination if it does materialise.”

“In practice, this means undertaking proper due diligence on suppliers across the supply chain to understand, for example, which farms are producing certain products, the factory conditions in which the products are processed, and how they are stored and transported. It is also important to include clauses in supplier contracts compelling suppliers to comply with legislation, cooperate with product recalls, audits and regulatory investigations, and comply with detailed operational and procedural requirements – such as around refrigeration temperatures when goods are in transit – as well as labelling specifications to inform consumers and hospitality businesses how to use and store the product,” he said.

Betts said food business operators also need to understand the consequences of contamination and what to do if contamination is identified in food. She explained that the business may be required to act immediately and effectively, irrespective of fault, if their intervention could protect consumers. Important issues to consider include traceability – the ability to identify the source and destination of ingredients and products; withdrawal – which prevents contaminated food reaching consumers; accurate information – where products may have reached consumers; and recall – where it is necessary to recover products from consumers, she said. 

Betts said: “All food business operators need to have a suite of comprehensive policies and procedures which can be implemented swiftly in the event of a food-related issue. Crisis management plans and teams should be appropriate for the nature and size of the business, including details of any cross-border contacts if products have been sold in foreign markets. The plan should be trained out to those staff members who would need to respond to the crisis, and it should also be regularly tested and updated – not least to ensure that key members of the team still work for the organisation.”