A major outbreak of E.coli 0157 poisoning in which 500 people were affected and 20 people died, seems to have led to improvements in the management of food risks in the retail and catering industries in Scotland, according to ESRC funded research at the London School of Economics.
A report from the Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation (CARR) says that an education campaign following the 1996 outbreak raised the profile of food safety and hygiene and brought home the importance of environmental health officers (EHOs) and the human costs of poor practices. Survey data also suggests that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in Scotland is generally perceived to have better relations with the local food community than their counterparts in London.
The CARR study, which has been reported in Environmental Health Scotland, says that many managers in hotels, restaurants and food shops in the UK pay just as much attention to consumer fears and opinions as they do to rules and regulations, when it comes to evaluating food hygiene and safety risks.
'Most managers in the sample sense a general public awareness of food safety and food hygiene risks,' says CARR co-researcher, Clive Jones. 'They said safety concerns were more important to the consumer than value for money, labelling and other considerations such as GM or additive content, even though actual risks might not be very high.'
The on-going research focused on risk management practices by businesses in south-east England and Scotland. A survey of 204 individuals in more than 30 businesses, ranging from large supermarket chains to independent restaurants and take-aways, found there was no consensus about the state of food safety and food hygiene in the UK today. It also revealed a high degree of confusion about the division of responsibility and functions of state regulators. A sizeable minority of respondents did not know that environmental health officers were employed by
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Contact: Annika Howard
annika.howard@esrc.ac.uk
44-017-934-13119
Economic & Social Research Council
29-Aug-2006