Scores on Doors was too direct for the Brits, but now they’ve come out with a Cause for Concern scheme to name and shame meat plants that have lousy audits.

It’s part of the UK Food Standards Agency ongoing commitment to openness and transparency to regularly publish audit reports of approved meat plants in England, Scotland and Wales (audit here means those done by government inspectors, rather than third-parties; but I could be wrong, it’s not clear).

Cause for concern is a process developed in response to Professor Pennington's report on the 2005 E. coli outbreak in Wales, which recommended that there needed to be improved management oversight of poorer performing meat plants. The process makes it clear which plants need to improve their standards to ensure risks to public health are kept to a minimum.

There are currently eight premises on the list. This will be updated, initially on a weekly basis, to reflect changes as meat plants move on or off the list.

Tim Smith, Chief Executive of the FSA, said, “If our inspectors decided that hygiene standards in a plant are so poor that public health could be at imminent risk, we would immediately stop that plant from operating. However, for those businesses that could improve quickly by following our advice, we hope that publication of this list will push them to raise their game and get off the list.”

The UK Food Standards Agency reports that Natco Foods is recalling certain batches of its ground cumin because some are contaminated with salmonella.

The affected batches have a ‘best before’ date of September 2013 or October 2013. If you have bought the product don’t use it.

The product being recalled is:
Natco Ground Cumin, 100g jar, 100g pack, 400g pack, 1kg pack, 5kg pack
Best before: September 2013, October 2013

Natco has recalled the affected products from consumers and stockists. Customer notices have been displayed in stores, explaining why the product has been recalled.

If you have bought the affected product, don’t use it. You can return it to the store for a full refund.

No other Natco products are known to be affected.

Six years after 5-year-old Mason Jones died a painful and unnecessary death and two years after recommendations from a formal inquiry, the U.K. Food Standards Agency has decided to publish additional guidance on cross-contamination.

The UK. Meat industry immediately complained.

In November 1996, over 400 fell ill and 21 were killed in Scotland by E. coli O157:H7 found in deli meats produced by family butchers John Barr & Son. The Butcher of Scotland, who had been in business for 28 years and was previously awarded the title of Scottish Butcher of the Year, was using the same knives to handle raw and cooked meat.

In a 1997 inquiry, Prof. Hugh Pennington recommended, among other things, the physical separation, within premises and butcher shops, of raw and cooked meat products using separate counters, equipment and staff.

Five-year-old Mason Jones died on Oct. 4, 2005, from E. coli O157 as part of an outbreak which sickened 157 -- primarily schoolchildren -- in south Wales.

In a 2009 inquiry, Prof. Pennington concluded that serious failings at every step in the food chain allowed butcher William Tudor to start the 2005 E. coli O157 outbreak, and that the responsibility for the outbreak, “falls squarely on the shoulders of Tudor,” finding that Tudor:

• encouraged staff suffering from stomach bugs and diarrhea to continue working;


• knew of cross-contamination between raw and cooked meats, but did nothing to prevent it;


• used the same packing in which raw meat had been delivered to subsequently store cooked product;
 and,

• operated a processing facility that contained a filthy meat slicer, cluttered and dirty chopping areas, and meat more than two years out of date piled in a freezer.

Prof Pennington said he was disappointed that the recommendations he made more than 10 years ago, following the E. coli O157 outbreak in Wishaw, Scotland, which killed 21 people had failed to prevent the South Wales Valleys outbreak.

In Feb. 2011, the U.K. Food Standards Authority issued guidance to clarify the steps that food businesses need to take to control the risk of contamination from E. coli O157.

On June 1, 2011, FSA published a Q&A document in response to feedback on its guidance on the control of cross-contamination with E. coli O157.

A few days later, the National Federation of Meat and Food Traders (NFMFT), warned that the cross-contamination guidelines pose a serious risk to the viability of small butchers and meat businesses.

Last week, the meat traders were back at it, saying some butchers have chosen to discontinue ready-to-eat food, as enforcement of FSA E. coli guidelines issued in February is getting tougher and this could lead to shop closures in the long-term.

Local authorities across the UK are increasingly enforcing the guidelines through normal inspection procedures, forcing butchers to alter their businesses. In order to comply with the requirement to separate equipment for raw and ready-to-eat food, some are using alternative vacuum-sealing techniques for prepared meat, but others have decided to discontinue it altogether.

Bye.

And the term, cross-contamination, doesn’t capture the carnage that dangerous bacteria can wreak, moving from raw foods to hands, cooked foods, prep surfaces and in butcheries. Bug transfer? The sisterhood of the travelling poop? Suggestions?

Health types in the U.K. have published the epidemiological results of an outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium DT8 in 2010 that sickened 81 people in 2010.

The authors write in Epidemiology and Infection:

Descriptive epidemiological investigation found a strong association with infection and consumption of duck eggs. Duck eggs contaminated with S. Typhimurium DT8 were collected from a patient's home and also at farms in the duck-egg supply chain. Although duck eggs form a small part of total UK eggs sales, there has been significant growth in sales in recent years.

This is the first known outbreak of salmonellosis linked to duck eggs in the UK since 1949 and highlighted the impact of a changing food source and market on the re-emergence of salmonellosis linked to duck eggs.

Control measures by the duck-egg industry should be improved along with a continued need to remind the public and commercial caterers of the potential high risks of contracting salmonellosis from duck eggs.

These consumer reminders, like the one published by the U.K. Food Standards Agency in Sept. 2010 -- Consumers reminded to follow good hygiene practice when handling and preparing duck eggs – advising folks to cook food until it is “steaming hot all the way through” are cute. And completely void of any evidence they work. Not so good for a science-based agency.