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FSA reveals plans to let retailers "police themselves" on food standards

Published:  24 October, 2016

The Food Standards Agency has put forward proposals for a radical change to the way it ensures retailers keep up with food and drink hygiene standards, by allowing firms with top ratings to hire private firms to carry out the checks instead.

The Food Standards Agency has put forward proposals to radically change the way it ensures retailers keep up with food and drink hygiene standards, by allowing firms with top ratings to hire private firms to carry out the checks instead.

Under the new plans, "trusted" retailers who can prove they meet top hygiene standards will be exempt from visits from trading standards officials from the FSA and will instead be able to police themselves instead.

This will also affect the way retailers are checked for stocking counterfeit foods and drink - including wines and spirits - , which pose health hazards from cheap and often illegal ingredients.

The move comes after major cuts to the watchdog's budget was announced earlier this year - although the FSA inisists the cuts have no bearing on plansfor a potential re-structure. 

The FSA has said that the previous model is a "resource intensive" way of monitoring food and drink standards and would be moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach to the "benefit of customers".

The news, which comes less than four years after the horsemeat scandal broke, has prompted some concern from the industry.

Stuart Fuller, director of commercial operations at NetNames, an online brand protection specialist, isn't against the decision as such measures have worked "in the past".

However, he believes there needs to be more collaboration amongst government, industry and retailers to fight the growing counterfeit food and drink problem.

"Counterfeit food has not vanished from supermarket shelves across the country. In fact, it's a growing problem," he said. "Shockingly, fake food products account for nearly 15% of all the illegal goods seized in much of the developed world. By using toxic ingredients that are cheap and easy to source, such fakes pose a considerable health risk."

He added that the rise of the internet changing the way consumers carry out their weekly grocery shop and technology enabling high quality fake packaging has enabled counterfeiting to increasingly penetrate online supply chains.

"Due to the proliferation of new threats, retailers, industry bodies and law enforcement agencies must continue to proactively collate their resources when combating counterfeiters. Otherwise, there is a real possibility that this problem will worsen in the future," he added.

The FSA will now embark on a three-month trial to test drive the new approach, inlcuding a pilot exercise with Tesco, Mitchells and Butlers.

Other pilot schemes are also planned before a final decision is made, including a project with the British Retail Consortium (BRC) to assess and evaluate the potential of approval by the FSA of BRC certification as a measure of assurance.

A new system of regulation is set to be in place by 2020.

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