The United Kingdom’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) has released details on food incidents the agency handled during the first quarter of 2016. The summary is for all food incidents which occurred between Jan. 1 and March 31, 2016, that led to an alert being issued by the FSA to recall or withdraw food products from sale. This quarterly list also includes information on investigations FSA supported relating to potential widespread risks from food poisoning and harmful contamination. Over the three-month period, FSA issued 49 food notices, of which 24 were allergy alerts, with the top undeclared allergen being milk. The FSA also supported 12 major investigations linked to possible risks of food poisoning and nine to do with physical contamination. The published information describes the overall details of the incident, the level of risk to consumers, and what action was taken by FSA, the food industry and local authorities. The agency stated that it has collated these data to make it easier for consumers to access the incident information. ‘We hope this retrospective look, covering food incidents from January to March 2016, will be useful to people who want to know more about the incidents we handle,” said Will Crewel, who heads FSA’s Consumer Protection programs. “These incidents aren’t live, but the list provides all the important aspects of them in one place.” Each year, a small number of incidents or investigations are put forward for a detailed review so that the FSA can make improvements and identify lessons learned.

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