Is our food safe?

Careful oversight is essential for food safety and security, but the UK's high standards have been at risk in recent years.

A bonfire of vital food safety laws due to happen at the end of this year has now been put on hold, thanks to pressure from Which?, industry experts, members of the House of Lords and MPs.

The food safety laws, developed when the UK was part of the EU, were at risk of being scrapped under the government's Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill 2022. 

The bill affects around 4,000 pieces of legislation, which the UK was instrumental in creating. 

Around 90% of food law in the UK falls under the umbrella of the bill, including those on food hygiene, contaminants in food (such as pesticide residues), restrictions on hormone use in beef farming and allergen labelling requirements.

These laws would have been scrapped at the end of 2023 unless ministers took action to preserve, reform or reinstate each one. 

Ministers and civil servants will now have more time to assess and evaluate each law and avoid the risk of mistakes or laws being ditched just to meet the deadline. 

This is welcome news, but we're not out of the woods yet.

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Why food safety laws need saving

Increasing food prices, changes to border controls and cuts to enforcement agencies in recent years mean our food safety and standards are increasingly at risk, as pressure is put on the system.

Food entering Great Britain from the EU isn't currently being checked at our borders as, since Brexit, the introduction of checks has been continually delayed.

Food security expert Professor Chris Elliot told us in early 2023: 'We're at risk of a major food scandal – we have an open door for criminals who will be rubbing their hands with glee.'

He was proved right just weeks later. In March 2023, it was revealed that a supplier of supermarket chain Booths had labelled pre-packaged deli items as British beef, but they were actually from Europe and South America.

Not long after, an EU investigation found pots of honey were being bulked out with cheap sugar syrup on a massive scale, including multiple samples from the UK. 

In times of economic hardship, cases of food fraud tend to rise. Unscrupulous companies try to cut costs with substitutions, while still charging customers for the premium product. 

The most famous example is the horsemeat scandal of 2013, where it was revealed that horsemeat was used in place of beef in ready meals and burgers.

Find out which foods are rising the most in cost in our monthly food inflation tracker

Lack of border checks and staff cuts make life easy for fraudsters

Checks are now due to be phased in at borders from October 2023. 

Medium and high-risk food and feed arriving in Great Britain – such as meat, fish, dairy, fruit, veg and grains – will need health certification. 

The plan is to extend these checks to all imports from January 2024, but the experts we spoke to weren't optimistic that this would happen in time. 

A lack of staff and funding is a problem, as is getting the systems in place.

In 2014, there were 2,449 full-time staff working in food hygiene and food standards in local authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. By 2020, there were only 1,767 – a third less – meaning that those left are increasingly stretched. 

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Which foods are most at risk of food fraud?

The foods most affected by food fraud are those that are relatively expensive, where the potential for profit is high. Common targets include:

• Meat and fish Can include expensive meat, such as lamb, is replaced with cheaper meat (chicken) or standard meat being sold as organic. With fish, cheaper species such as pollock might be sold as cod or haddock.
• Olive oil One of the most adulterated items. Standard oil is sold as extra virgin, or oil from Spain or Greece, might be sold as more expensive Italian olive oil. Sometimes it's bulked out with cheaper oils such as rapeseed.
• Honey It may be bulked out with cheaper sugar syrup, or a cheaper honey is passed off as premium Manuka honey, which has protected origin status and can sell for more than £20 a pot.
• Basmati rice Fraudsters often pass off cheaper varieties as pricier basmati, or mix it with standard long-grain rice to bulk it out.
• Alcohol This can involve cheaper wines being passed off as more expensive ones. In more serious cases, fake vodka has been seized which contained methanol, which is extremely harmful and can cause blindness and death.
• Spices In 2021, an EU study found that 48% of oregano samples were adulterated, mainly bulked out with olive leaves. Saffron is also often adulterated. Testing has found samples containing tinted plant fibres and even coloured paper.

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The human cost of food fraud

Food fraud rips off consumers, undercuts legitimate suppliers and poses a serious risk to health.

In October 2022, a multi-agency operation uncovered 2.4 tonnes of illegal pork being transported to England from Eastern Europe.

This included raw, unlabelled and unrefrigerated meat stored in carrier bags alongside cheese, crisps and cakes, plus raw pork loosely wrapped in tissue paper at the bottom of a wheelie bin.

And a recent investigation by Farmers Weekly found a food manufacturer that had been passing off foreign pork as British, mixing rotten pork with fresh pork before processing, leaving meat to defrost on the factory floor and falsifying paperwork testing for bacterial levels.

The meat processed from this company ended up in foods sold at major supermarkets. A criminal investigation is now underway.

As these examples show, we can't take food safety for granted, and it's vital we take the opportunity to review and strengthen food safety laws, via a transparent process that allows both consumers and legitimate businesses to have confidence in the system.

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