Food Standards Scotland (FSS) have in place a Strategy to 2021 that sets out a vision for a food and drink environment in Scotland that benefits, protects and is trusted by consumers. Ensuring the safety of the Scottish food chain is key to delivering this vision. Outcome 1 (Food is Safe) of the FSS strategic plan describes the importance of effective food surveillance systems in enabling the identification of risks to food and feed. This surveillance plays a key role in generating intelligence and insight to inform interventions for preventing foodborne illness in Scotland. In accordance with this, FSS has recently developed a Food Surveillance Strategy. As part of our Food Surveillance Strategy, FSS is developing a Targeted Surveillance Programme to examine the microbiological safety of commodities known to be associated with foodborne illness.
The aim of this targeted sampling programme is to generate statistically valid data on the microbiological risk of key commodities in Scotland. This data will be used to:
FSS propose a targeted surveillance programme that covers a single commodity each year period. FSS have undertaken the initial step of reviewing existing evidence from past food incidents, combined with historic results and surveillance programmes to establish priority areas for surveillance. The commodities below have been equally prioritised and will be surveyed for their microbiological quality over the next 5-10 years. Please note this is not necessarily the order in which they will be undertaken.
The proposed methodology for this surveillance programme includes:
FSS is required under the Food Safety Act 1990 to consult with those affected by its activities.
The purpose of this consultation exercise is to provide all interested stakeholders the opportunity to comment on the rationale and design of FSS's proposed Targeted Surveillance Programme for Microbiological Food Safety in Scotland. Input is sought from stakeholders regarding their opinions on the proposed programme and how this should be undertaken.
The consultation will be open for eight weeks until the 31st October 2017.
Thank you for participating in this consultation. FSS will now review all the responses and we will publish the results in due course.
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