Nov 29th, 2023
3 mins
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) have published their annual ‘Our Food’ report, which reviews food standards across the UK for 2022. This is the second report since the UK left the EU and is an independent and evidence-based annual assessment of food standards across all four nations.
The report shows that overall, food standards remained stable in 2022, despite pressures including inflation, labour shortages and the war in Ukraine. However, it also reveals shortages in key occupations needed to keep food safe, such as vets and food inspectors.
As a result, the FSA and FSS are now calling on government, local authorities, professional bodies, and industry to:
- Address the decline in local authority Trading Standards officers, Environmental Health and Food Law officers to ensure food standards are maintained.
- Tackle the shortage of Official Veterinarians to protect animal health and welfare and trade and assure food hygiene is maintained.
- Share more and better-quality information across the food industry to help stop criminal gangs and tackle food crime that costs the UK up to £2 billion per year.
- Introduce import controls on food imported from the EU to help reduce the risk of unsafe food entering the UK from the EU.
You can read the report in full here
