FDBusiness.com

The British Poultry Council has welcomed the broad findings and recommendations of the comprehensive EFSA study of EU poultry meat inspection. The UK poultry meat industry and BPC have been working with FSA and other stakeholders to provide input into the review process and are pleased to see more biological risk-based based principles reflected in the EFSA Opinion.

“We have long reasoned that the traditional visual inspection procedures enshrined in EU legislation for all species are inappropriate in the modern poultry industry. The approach needs to be modernised into the kind of integrated food safety assurance system focusing on biological risk which is being recommended in this Opinion,” says Peter Bradnock, chief executive of the BPC.

“This whole chain approach is already in place and working successfully to prevent and control Salmonella risks on poultry meat. Work on identifying and implementing similar measures against Campylobacter is on-going and, although there remain gaps in our scientific knowledge, the industry is confident that the same system-based approach will be successful.”

The recommendations place more responsibility on the food business operators to ensure the proper and reliable food safety systems are in place across the production and processing chain.

“However, this is largely the case already with poultry companies conducting their own process hygiene testing in addition to the official microbiological testing under existing regulations and separate from the current visual inspection procedures,” he points out.

Peter Bradnock continues: “Some modifications in the Food Chain Information Reports may be needed to provide more information in to these existing procedures. Food safety will benefit from this and from the ability of the FSA to apply official resources to particular plants on the basis of assessed risk, and to more in depth auditing. This is a positive and sensible move towards enhancing the system of food safety controls applied to poultry meat in the EU.”