Food safety checks 'under strain'

By BBC consumer affairs correspondent Nicola Carslaw

With the rush to import meat to fill our supermarket shelves, new concerns are being expressed about whether enough checks are in place to protect public health.

The enforcement of food safety measures is being put under immense strain, because officers who usually carry out the task are also having to police the regulations surrounding foot-and-mouth.

"If people realised how few checks really are going on, I think there would be a great deal more concern

Dr Richard North

The Food Standards Agency has ordered trading standards and environmental health officers to be extra vigilant and check all meat imports thoroughly.

Inspectors in the Meat Hygiene Service have discovered spinal cord in several consignments of beef brought into England, Scotland and Northern Ireland in the last few weeks.

Under EU-wide BSE controls, it should have been removed in the abattoir, immediately after slaughter.

Spinal cord

The Food Standards Agency says that remnants of spinal cord have been found in six consignments from Germany; in two from the Netherlands, two from Spain and one in beef from the Irish Republic.

It condemned these breaches as totally unacceptable and sent a letter of protest to the European Commission, which in turn censured the German authorities.

Nik Askaroff: "Vigilance is paying off"

Two slaughterhouses there have now had their licences to operate taken away.

Many of the discoveries were made at the cutting plant owned by Anglo Dutch Meats - or ADM, in Eastbourne, Sussex.

Its managing director, Nik Askaroff, says it shows how vigilance is paying off.

"The fact that our staff and the Meat Hygiene Service inspectors have found this spinal cord emphasises how checks at this end of the food chain are working," he said.

He defends the German meat producers, saying there is real bitterness about the fact that they are being treated as pariahs, when they honestly believe their meat is second to none in quality and safety.

However, he adds: "My concern is that there is less thorough checking going on elsewhere in the food chain - once the meat leaves my factory."

Meat imports rise

Since the foot-and-mouth outbreak, it has been calculated that imports of meat into the UK have risen tenfold.

Production at home stopped altogether when the disease first took hold.

But even though it has now re-started in so-called "safe" areas, it is still roughly half of what it should be.

Supermarkets have had to look to Europe for meat supplies

All the supermarkets placed orders overseas - stepping up their demand for New Zealand lamb, Dutch and Danish pork and bacon and beef from as far afield as Australia, as well as from elsewhere in Europe.

Food manufacturers and the catering trade are also taking in even more imported meat than usual.

Dr Richard North used to be a meat inspector and now trains environmental health officers.

He knows what they are thinking and says many are despairing.

Overstretched resources

He says the system they are part of is cracking at the seams.

"If people realised how few checks really are going on, I think there would be a great deal more concern than there actually is," he said.

"The government has dumped the foot-and-mouth problem on already overstretched and under-resourced local authorities."

Tim Lang, professor of food policy at Thames Valley University, agrees.

But he says one good thing might emerge from the ashes of foot-and-mouth.

It is that we rich European nations come to the full realisation that enough is enough.

Mr Lang said: "If we want cheap and plentiful food supplied through free trade in Europe, the question has to be asked: Is it worth it if the downside is an increase in the risk of infected meat going on sale?"