More than €100 million worth of potentially dangerous food and drinks was seized in the latest Operation OPSON, coordinated by Europol’s Intellectual Property Crime Coordination Centre and INTERPOL. 672 individuals were arrested so far, with investigations ongoing in many countries.

Police, customs, national food regulatory authorities and private sector partners across 78 countries* took part in the five-month OPSON VIII operation which ran from December 2018 through April 2019.

In total, some 16 000 tonnes and 33 million litres of potentially dangerous fake food and drink was seized as a result of more than 67 000 checks carried out at shops, markets, airports, seaports and industrial estates.

The first estimates of the global and regional burden of foodborne disease, published by WHO in December 2015, show that the burden is significant throughout the world. This report presents data for the WHO European Region. Every year, more than 23 million people fall ill from eating contaminated food, resulting in 5000 deaths and more than 400 000 disability-adjusted life years. The most frequent causes of foodborne disease are diarrhoeal disease agents, the most common being Norovirus followed by Campylobacter spp. Non-typhoidal Salmonella spp. are responsible for the majority of deaths. Non-typhoidal Salmonella spp. followed by Campylobacter spp. cause the highest burden; the parasitic disease toxoplasmosis, which can cause severe damage to unborn children and immunodeficient patients, represents the third highest burden of foodborne disease. These figures indicate the need for strengthened prevention, surveillance and management of foodborne disease in the European Region, including risk communication, awareness-raising and consumer education. Furthermore, the data can be used to guide food safety policymaking and decision-making, including prioritization, at national and regional levels. WHO is committed to working with its Member States and partners to strengthen prevention, detection and management of food safety risks, with the overall aim of lowering the burden of foodborne disease.

http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/402989/50607-WHO-Food-Safety-publicationV4_Web.pdf?ua=1 

The 2018 report on the activities of the EU Food Fraud Network has been published.

It presents the voluntary exchanges related to food fraud suspicions within the EU AAC System. In 2018, a total of 234 requests for cooperation were launched in the AAC-FF by the Member States and Norway, 58 of which originating in Germany. Though the list of requests exchanged in the system does not represent the entirety of food fraud incidents occurring in the EU, its number has increased significantly in 2018 (compared to 167 cases in 2016). The category “fish and fish products” had the largest number of requests (45), followed by “meat and meat products” and “fats and oils”.

Launched in 2013, the EU Food Fraud Network allows the Member States to work in matters where the national authorities are confronted with possible intentional violations of the EU agri-food chain legislation with a cross-border impact. The EU Food Fraud Network links the liaison bodies designated by each Member State in accordance with the rules laid down in the Official Controls Regulation. The participants work on a voluntary basis (differently from the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed, RASFF) and only for cross-border non-compliances.

USDA estimates that number of federal inspectors would shrink from 365 to 218

The Trump administration plans to shift much of the power and responsibility for food safety inspections in hog plants to the pork industry as early as May, cutting the number of federal inspectors by about 40 percent and replacing them with plant employees.

Under the proposed new inspection system, the responsibility for identifying diseased and contaminated pork would be shared with plant employees, whose training would be at the discretion of plant owners. There would be no limits on slaughter-line speeds.
The new pork inspection system would accelerate the federal government’s move toward delegating inspections to the livestock industry. During the Obama administration, poultry plant owners were given more power over safety inspections, although that administration canceled plans to increase line speeds. The Trump administration in September allowed some poultry plants to increase line speeds.
The Trump administration also is working to shift inspection of beef to plant owners. Agriculture Department officials are scheduled next month to discuss the proposed changes with the meat industry.

These proposals, part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to reduce regulations, come as the federal government is under fire for delegating some of its aircraft safety oversight responsibilities to Boeing, which developed the 737 Max jets involved in two fatal crashes over the past six months. Federal Aviation Administration certification of the two aircraft involved in the crashes took place under Trump, but the major shift toward delegating key aspects of aviation oversight began during the George W. Bush administration.

As online shopping is becoming increasingly popular, more and more enterprises are tapping into new business opportunities by offering various kinds of foodstuffs, groceries and food supplements for sale on the Internet. However, sellers entering this marketplace are not always aware that the EU food safety regulatory requirements governing traditional food business activities (i.e. hygiene standards and labelling) are also applicable to sales conducted online. 

A new Commission report about Member States' official controls on Internet sales of food found, that Member States have integrated these into their existing official control systems. It is further concluded that such controls are still limited and will need to be further enhanced, also due to the fast growth anticipated in the coming years of e-commerce. The report is based on a 2017 series of fact-finding missions in seven EU Member States. The overall conclusions along with some good practices and common challenges encountered by Member States can be found in the overview report.

full report

Although the EU’s system for protecting consumers from chemical hazards in food is soundly based and respected worldwide, it is currently overstretched, according to a new report from the European Court of Auditors. The European Commission and the Member States do not have the capacity to implement the system fully, the auditors say.

EU food safety policy aims to guarantee a high level of protection for human life and health, and to protect EU citizens from three types of hazards in food: physical, biological and chemical. This audit concentrated on chemical hazards in food.

The auditors found that the EU food safety model commands respect worldwide, but that it is currently overstretched. The legal framework governing chemicals in food, feed, and plants and live animals remains a work in progress, they say, and has not yet been implemented to the level envisaged in EU laws governing food production. In addition, the European Food Safety Authority, which provides scientific advice to inform European policymaking, suffers backlogs in its work in connection with chemical hazards. This affects the proper functioning of parts of the system and the sustainability of the model as a whole.