Kerry McCarthy – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kerry McCarthy on 2014-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the risk that meat not fit for human consumption could enter the human supply chain; and what steps his Department is taking to reduce such risks.
Jane Ellison
Food businesses have responsibility for producing safe meat. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) makes sure that meat not fit for human consumption does not enter the food chain, through the deployment of staff carrying out official controls or through the work of local authorities nationally. The provision of monitoring, sampling, surveillance and inspection across the links of the food chain are carried out in approved and registered food businesses. The legislation governing the production of meat is set out in various European Union and national regulations.
Key areas of control are:
– enforcement of strict regulatory standards and assessment of records relating to Food Business Operators’ food safety management systems;
– approval and registration of meat premises ensuring that only premises that meet the minimum standards set may operate;
– identification and labelling, animal health, animal welfare and veterinary hygiene activities;
– the enforcement of EU and national rules relating to production and processing of meat , and its storage and distribution is assessed through risk based audits and unannounced inspections;
– a network of veterinary research laboratories following sampling activities to test meat products for veterinary medicine residues, campylobacter etc.;
– close co-operation with the FSA and other Government Agencies on food safety issues;
– reporting of food fraud issues and wider cascade of topical areas of concern for focused attention and actions; and
– reporting of meat rejection results for disease surveillance and assessing the risk with a view to disease eradication and control programmes.
In slaughterhouses, official veterinarians carry out checks on live animals presented for slaughter, with inspectors carrying out post-mortem inspection checks of carcases and offal. In accordance with EU and national legislation, only meat that has passed stringent safety checks by the FSA will be health marked and allowed to enter the food chain.
