Dutch Safety Board report finds deficiencies in meat supply chain

The investigation was carried out in response to a number of recent incidents in the meat sector, including links to the horse meat scandal, and a subsequent request from the State Secretary of Economic Affairs that it look into the risks to food safety in the production and trading of meat.

The DSB said that, during its investigation into risks in the meat supply chain, it "observed numerous deficiences in hygiene", and that fraud in the industry posed "underestimated risk", with potentially harmful consequences to public health.

It admitted it did not know the extent to which these failings had impacted public health, but said that only a fraction of the true numbers of people falling ill were actually represented in the statistics.

Many smaller firms exhibited neither the willingness, nor the knowledge to guarantee optimum food safety, it said. "They assume there are no deficiencies as long as the competent supervisory authority does not intervene."

While the report acknowledged that larger firms often have quality assurance systems in place, in some cases they have led to a ‘system reality’ which results in a focus on complying to the system norms. "When food business operators put all their trust in the paper reality, food safety becomes a sham," claimed the DSB.

It added there had been a government belief that the increased use of supply chain quality systems would reduce the need for supervision. However, it was assumed private regulation would ensure standards were upheld, which had not happened.

One of the problems it highlighted was the ‘stopwatch’ mentality by which supervision was done, focusing on how quickly the work was done, rather than how well. It said the situation was exacerbated by the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) invoicing for the costs of meat inspection and supervision in intervals of 15 minutes.

"Furthermore, the NVWA is not yet achieving its objective of working in a risk-orientated way – in part because of a lack of expertise and information about the risks in the meat industry," claimed the DSB.

Key points made by the Dutch Safety Board included:

• To improve the safety of meat, it is a high priority that private and public parties in the meat supply chain each perform better to exercise their responsibilities.

• Both public and private parties could share more information, learn from each other, address problems, and correct each other.

• Meat safety must not be a derivative of quality, but must be the primary concern of all involved parties. Small margins may never be an excuse to make concessions in respect of safety.

• It is important that the production of meat is made more transparent. If it becomes clearer where unsafe meat has originated from and if poorly performing businesses are named, this would act as an incentive to improve safety.

Following the conclusion of the report, the DSB has made a number of recommendations to the State Secretary for Economic Affairs and the Minister for Health, Welfare and Sport, including improved traceability measures, and the introduction of clear segregation between meat and livestock inspection.

The full report and recommendations can be found at: http://http://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/uploads/phase-docs/560/38357a3466aerisico-s-vleesketen-en-web.pdf​