Food recalls stable in Q2 - Stericycle
The index reported a 2% increase over Q1 with 18 more incidents. However, the number of recalls went gone down by 31 compared to Q2 2014.
There were 773 food recalls and notifications in Q2 2015, including food, feed, and food contact material.
Stericycle said the figure reflected there was not much movement between the quarters with only a slight affect coming from the back end of Christmas.
Responsibility for all
Farzad Henareh, Stericycle ExpertSOLUTIONS European vice president, said the index zoomed in on responsibility.
“Different parties need to understand their role to ensure product safety, with manufacturers making sure risk assessment takes place and quality checks are done during the process and they do due diligence on companies they work with and are supplied by,” he told FoodQualityNews.
“Consumers also have an active role, by making themselves more aware as the statistics are public. They can find out the companies behind [a recall] and where products come from.
“The RASFF portal is quite detailed it works in the background with all the national authorities having a responsibility to notify the portal and manufacturers telling the national authority who through the portal informs the EU market.
“Regulators enforce quality standards and ensure adherence and respond if manufacturers shift production to different countries, to protect consumers.”
Italy was the leading notifying country in Q2 with 100 events followed by the UK with 89.
France (72), the Netherlands (71) and Belgium (45) rounded out the list of top notifying countries.
The food sector is still benefiting from EU labelling regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, which requires mandatory inclusion of allergens on labels and other important information on pre-packaged processed foods.
The top five categories were fruits and vegetables (20%), nuts, nut products and seeds (20%), fish and fish products (11%), poultry meat and poultry meat products and meat and meat products (other than poultry).
Henareh said more companies are adhering to regulation so what was a big issue in the past is less so now.
“Fruit and vegetables are on top again but there has been a shift in where the fruit is imported from, with Turkey on top of the list. Importers and producers in Turkey need to play catch-up in the use of pesticides and fungicides to meet regulation.
“Italy imports a lot of food from the outside, the insight it gives is we have companies who need to catch-up on regulations and food has always been, from a notifying perspective, part of the local culture and consumption is more of a social activity.”
Organic recalls and nutrition apps growth
Henareh said things of note include rising organic recalls and nutrition apps.
“In the US, recalls in the organic space have been increasing. Organic made up about 7% of food recalls, but last year it was 2% and we see that becoming a trend in Europe," he said.
“With organic you think there is care around production and manufacturing but 90% of organic recalls have been linked to bacterial contamination since 2012.
“The technological side is also growing with many apps including some for nutrition as almost everybody is online.
“These apps look at calorie consumption and intake and there is no regulation around that which is linked into product risk and there is a role for regulators to play in these developments.”
Although recalls decreased in Q2 Henareh said if looked at over time since 2003 to now there has been a consistent increase.
“There are more products, more niche markets, the supply chain is more complex, markets are more global and regulations have been sharpened and if you add the increase in organic recalls and the impact of nutritional apps and software you can see why but it also gives global authorities the chance to share expertise.”
