A new tool to protect businesses from food crime – and the threat to consumer health – has been launched by the Food Standards Agency, supported by Warwickshire County Council’s Trading Standards.
Food crime is serious fraud and related criminality in the food supply chain. Trading Standards will be contacting food businesses in the coming weeks to bring the new food fraud tool to their attention.
Mark Ryder, the county council’s strategic director for communities, said: “Food crime takes a variety of forms, from the use of stolen food in the supply chain to unlawful slaughter, adulteration and food substitution.
"Criminality of this nature can have a detrimental effect upon consumer health and threatens the UK food industry's reputation for excellence, which in turn could have damaging economic consequences for legitimate businesses.
“This new tool will help Warwickshire food businesses identify the risks to their business from food crime, and outline steps that they can take to mitigate this.
"In doing so they will be helping to protect the health of consumers, and strengthen the UK food industry's reputation for safe, authentic and high-quality products."
“I urge all food businesses to visit our website for a link to the food fraud resilience self-assessment tool.”
The self-assessment tool covers different areas that businesses will need to be aware of so that they can better identify and address process issues.
The tool is made up of seven sections and provides advice for countering food fraud and will help businesses to evaluate themselves and identify areas for improvement.
This can be completed anonymously, and any data submitted will not be collected in a way that could identify an individual business. It should take no more than 15 minutes to use.
For more information visit: https://tinyurl.com/tsfoodfraud