HMRC and the Treasury have published a consultation on how the customs system is working and what improvements could be made in areas such as the customs declaration process, working with customs intermediaries and transit facilitation.

Any individual or business with views on the future of the UK’s customs regime are invited to respond but it will likely be of most interest to:

• traders
• intermediaries
• freight forwarders
• fast parcels operators
• hauliers
• business representative organisations
• trade bodies
• customs consultancies that help traders with their customs affairs

Some aspects of the customs regime may be more relevant to the respondent than others therefore HMRC and HM Treasury also welcome partial responses.

The consultation can be found here and will end on 2nd May 2022.

The government will publish a summary of responses shortly after the consultation closes. Evidence submitted will be considered as part of the customs policy-making process, and this may lead to further consultation in the future.

The Food Standards Agency has recently published its five-year strategy for improving food, recommitting to its mission of ‘food you can trust’.

The strategy reflects the FSA’s greater responsibilities now that the UK is outside of the EU and considers growing public concern about health and climate change.

It sets out how it will continue to lead the way on food safety and authenticity and signals their willingness to support governments to improve the health of the nation and to look after the planet.

It details how the FSA will work as an independent, non-ministerial government department and reaffirms the role of science and evidence in informing everything they do and their commitment to transparency, proportionality and innovation.

It also sets out the aspiration to make it easier for food businesses to meet their obligations and do the right thing to protect public health.

You can read the FSA’s new strategy here.

The Government Chemist team have collaborated with experts to develop quantitative risk assessment (QRA) guidance for food allergens.

An electronic workshop in October 2020 had identified that a summary of current best in class guidance, identified gaps, potential improvements & harmonization of allergen QRA arising largely from cross contact would be very beneficial.

QRA of cross contamination by food allergens brings sharper focus to decision making in the subsequent risk management. This includes the interpretation of analytical findings, handling of potential food recalls and the management of precautionary allergen labelling.

Areas of focus include proactive assessments for food production under normal conditions, both in the upstream supply chain and in food production facilities, and reactive assessments as part of an allergen incident response. The paper also offers insights into more detailed guidance for allergen QRA that will be published later in the year.

The paper is currently available as a pre-print.

HMRC has published guidance for organisations to check if they will need an import licence and what import duty they will need to pay when importing certain agricultural goods and food from outside the UK.

Amongst other things the guidance includes useful links to information on which products need an import licence as well as those which don’t, such as goods that enter a customs warehouse, are eligible for inward processing or are returned to the UK.

It also covers how to register with the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), applying for an import or export licence, and tariffs and tariff quotas.

The Food Standards Agency is calling for evidence on the safety of plastics which are recovered from the open environment and recycled for use as food contact material.

This call for evidence will be of most interest to:

• Plastic manufacturers
• Converters
• Retailers and interested parties
• Any business that is using or actively investigating the potential use in food contact material (FCM) products of recycled plastic, whose starting material is sourced from the open environment.

The call for evidence covers ‘ocean-bound’ plastics, as well as those sourced from the ocean or land. Plastic acquired from established municipal waste and recycling collection systems are considered to be out of scope.

An initial evaluation on ocean-bound plastic by the Joint Expert Group on Food Contact Materials (FCMJEG), which provides independent advice to the FSA, found that on the available evidence, it has not been possible to guarantee that the use of this material in food contact products is without risk – either in direct contact with food, or as a middle layer. Therefore, further evidence to inform a full comprehensive risk assessment is required.

The FSA is also keen to know how manufacturers and suppliers take into account material which is sourced from countries with different waste management infrastructures to the UK and EU, and where information on the previous use or misuse of the plastics is less certain.

The call for evidence can be found here.

Responses should be submitted to environmentalplastic@food.gov.uk by 6pm on Tuesday, 20 September 2022.