The food safety watchdog is exploring ways to prevent criminal activity in the food industry following fraud allegations in the meat sector.
The food safety watchdog has launched a new freephone number to make it easier for people to report suspected food fraud as it revealed related crimes cost the UK economy up to £2 billion a year.
In an update from its Food Fraud Working Group, the FSA said it was working with industry on ways to encourage food fraud whistleblowing and strengthening arrangements to allow the sharing of information between third-party auditors used by food businesses and the FSA to help prevent criminal activity.
Three arrests were made after supermarket chain Booths received pre-packaged sliced meats and deli products that were allegedly sourced from South America and Europe, but labelled as British.In a separate report, the FSA estimated that the cost of food fraud to consumers, businesses and government was between £410 million and £1.96 billion per year.
“Food businesses are the first and most important line of defence and we want to support them. This is one of the reasons why we launched a working group to explore together whether some areas of our collective response to food crime can be improved. Together, we’re making it easier to share intelligence and information by helping people who work in the food system to share their concerns with us freely and confidentially.
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