One of Scotland’s biggest exporters of diagnostic test kits for the food and drinks industries has welcomed plans to create a regulatory body to stop the spread of food fraud.
The new food crime unit was just one of the recommendations of Professor Christopher Elliott’s report, commissioned in the wake of the horsemeat scandal two years ago that saw products labelled as beef test positively for equine DNA.
Last month, we reported that protecting consumers from food fraud was one of the most pressing concerns of the food and beverages industry, according to research.
Now, diagnostics kit manufacturer R-Biopharm Rhône has welcomed the decision to set up an industry body to combat the trade in fraudulent products; the food crime unit plans to implement a better intelligence gathering framework, unnanounced audits, greater laboratory testing capacity and the promotion of a more investigative approach to the industry’s supply chain.
R-Biopharm Rhône managing director Simon Bevis said: “This is a welcomed move and it is encouraging that ministers have indicated that all the recommendations in Professor Elliott’s report will be accepted.
“It is of the utmost importance that consumers in the UK can have confidence in the provenance of their food and be assured that the product is actually what it is labelled as. If it is not, then it is fraud.”
The Glasgow-based company claims that the new body would be useful in investigating emerging concerns that cheap fish such as pollock and coley were being sold to consumers under the guise of more premium species such as cod.
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