How can we prevent another horsemeat scandal?

When horsemeat was discovered in UK food products in 2013, major concerns were raised. And the official report into the scandal makes for worrying reading.

After public outrage at the discovery of horsemeat in ‘beef’ burgers and other meat products in 2013, the Government commissioned an independent review into the integrity and the failures of the food supply network.

The inquiry, led by Professor Chris Elliot, Director of the Global Institute for Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast, has now published its final report, which highlights a lack of surveillance and auditing across the supply network. This shortcoming made the contamination of the food chain with horsemeat a doddle, and a criminal activity.

Food fraud versus food crime

The report opens with a quick distinction: “food fraud becomes food crime” when it’s no longer based on random acts by individual rogues, “but becomes an organised activity by groups which knowingly set out to deceive, or injure, those purchasing food.”

Factors that have enabled criminals to take advantage of supply chains include the growing complexity of these networks. It’s harder to be assured of the quality of a product with constituents from, say, five different countries than it is for a product with ingredients from one.

However, the report declares that, despite this, “consumers must be able to trust that the food they consume is what it claims to be.” The protection that has been in place has clearly been insufficient and the horsemeat scandal clearly demonstrates that. Since the incident, there has apparently been a “concerted effort by industry to simplify supply chains where possible.”

In fact, the report makes the recommendation that the Government create a new Food Crime Unit that would in theory investigate and act upon criminal operations – though the exact details of its role and powers aren't yet set out.

The establishment of this new body is necessary, because neither the police nor the National Crime Agency (whose job it is investigate serious organised crime) currently see food crime as an area of responsibility. The Director General of the NCA said that it was "not traditionally a high priority for law enforcement", although it was "an area of concern".

It's more than an "area of concern": food is an absolutely vital resource and it's shocking that the Government needed such a drastic wake-up call to set up an organisation to tackle food fraud and crime, especially when these aren't uncommon in the rest of Europe.

“Unknown” levels of food crime

As it turns out, the Government and industry bodies seem ignorant as to the extent of criminal food activity. “Estimates of… serious organised crime in food provision vary widely” says the report, noting that the scope of the problem in the UK remains “unknown”.

After tests were run at the time the original story broke, the European Commission said that up to 5% of EU beef products had horsemeat in them – a huge proportion of a massive market.

The revelation that the level of food crime is not known by our Government is truly worrying; how can they act on something if they haven’t found out the extent of the existing problem over a year after the fact?

The report also mentions that there is no active mechanism for gathering or sharing “intelligence about potential and actual [food] fraud”, and says that such a system is utterly necessary.

Hindsight may be perfect, but it's concerning to hear that information is still not being collected and shared by industry leaders and Government bodies to tackle the problems and strengthen the resilience of the food supply chain.

Government response

The Government has responded to the report’s key findings and accepted that there is action to be taken on all suggestions.

Liasing with DEFRA and the Food Standards Agency (FSA), it will make moves to protect people from food crime, including the establishment of a new Government Group which will put MPs in better contact with the FSA. Again, the non-existence of such a Group is a worrying matter – was the Government not properly liasing with the FSA before now?

A Food Crime Unit will be “operational by the end of 2014” and work on “auditing and assurance regimes” including analysis centres to ensure that we can be safe in the knowledge that we're eating beef, not horse, for dinner.

You might also like:

The horsemeat scandal six months on: what's changed?

Horsemeat: blame games and why butchers need to help us to help them

Will supermarkets suffer from the horse meat scandal?