A recent report has revealed a corrupt plan to make money out of modern food hygiene and food safety requirements. Fraudsters are visiting food businesses, where they claim to be from the Food Standards Agency and carry out “food hygiene inspections” before charging the business operator fixed penalty fees for supposed breaches in hygiene! The [...]
Ever since the infamous Blue Smarties, parents have been wary of the amount and type of food colouring in food – fearing the effect it could have on their children. Although at the time it sounded like media-fuelled nonsense, Southampton University has recently discovered that there are six colours that can actually be associated with [...]
Food contact materials are substances that come into contact with food; including “active” and “intelligent” materials. Active food contact materials are those that are designed to release a substance into a foodstuff – to improve its condition or extend shelf life, for example. Intelligent food contact materials are those that monitor the packing environment or [...]
After warnings that Zam Zam water might contain unsafe levels of arsenic, the Food Standards Agency has started warning consumers against other products that might also have unsafe levels of both arsenic and lead! Most people are aware of the dangers of lead poisoning, but it is especially important that infants, children and pregnant women [...]
It is a well known fact that the media over-hypes everything as a way of making money. Although a bit of hysteria is normally harmless, the recent claims that children should not be given ham sandwiches in their lunchboxes hit a nerve with food hygiene specialists across the country. The claim was that red and [...]
Zam Zam water is sacred to Muslims and cannot be legally exported from its source; the Well of Zam Zam in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. For this reason, the presence of small containers of “Zam Zam Water” the United Kingdom has caused many raised eyebrows amongst the food safety community – especially in this time of [...]
It has recently come to light, thanks to the Food Standards Agency, that a bullock over 48 months of age was slaughtered and put to market without having been tested for bovine spongiform encephalitis, BSE or mad cow disease as it is commonly known. All bullocks over the age of 48 months are meant to [...]
In today’s hyper-scientific and overprotective society, it is easy to forget that there are still unknown and potentially harmful ingredients that can make their way into our food. For this reason, we have the Novel Food and Novel Food Ingredients Regulations 1997 to protect us from food and ingredients that the FSA hasn’t deemed safe [...]
Since the start of 2006, there have been new food hygiene laws in place that affect all food-related businesses, including primary producers. It is very important that anybody that has any dealing with food investigate whether they need to register their premise with the local authorities. If your company has anything to do with food, [...]
Behold; an 8-minute video produced by the Food Standards Agency to demonstrate the importance of the 4 Cs of Food Hygiene that were discussed in the last post during Food Safety Week 2o09. In case you have forgotten, the 4 Cs are: Cooking Cleaning Chilling Cross-Contamination So technically it is the 5 Cs, but 4 [...]