The Food Standards Agency (FSA) published the guidance notes this month for comment fromindustry, the public and others involved in the food supply chain. The guidance notes are part ofthe ongoing series of advice the FSA plans to issue for processors on provisions in the EU's GeneralFood Law.
The proposed guidance deals with the part that defines when a food is unsafe. It also covers EUlegal requirements on food and feed safety, traceability provisions and the need to notify, withdrawor recall products. The FSA said it decided to re-issue the guidance notes after the food sectorcomplained that the proceedures would result in high costs to the industry.
Traceability is a key concern within the food industry due to consumer concerns over food safety,new regulations and the cost of recalls to plants when products are found to be contaminated.
In the main the Forum on Private Business believes that an already existing EU guidance on thelaw is sufficient for use by small and medium sized (SMEs) businesses, said Bob Salmon, an advisorto the organisation. He drafted the forum's response to the consultation.
"In my opinion the FSA is wasting time rewriting guidance that is already in existenceand in a format that is difficult for SMEs to understand," he told FoodProductionDaily.com.
He advises the FSA should scrap the document leaving the current EU guidance as the primarysource of advice on compliance with legal requirements.
"In short we are not convinced that this document in any way clarifiesthe provisions of the regulation that have not already been made plain in other texts," hewrote to the FSA. "We find the presentation complex, wordy and too long for simple referenceby small businesses."
The new FSA draft focuses primarily on the legal requirements of the EU regulation. Under the revision the FSA would give a greater discretion to food businesses than is contained in the EU guidance over how long they need to keep records for traceability purposes.
The FSA is also amending the requirement that food companies need to immediately produce traceability records by allowing processors in certain cases to produce these within "a short timescale". The new guidance notes also concentrate more on the requirements of the EU legislation and provide minimal advice on good practice, the FSA stated.
"The agency view is that these new FSA guidance notes are more appropriate for food businesses in the UK," the regulator stated. " This approach has been discussed with the European Commission."
The FSA says it is now seeking comments on the revision, especially on the partial regulatory impact assessment, which seeks to identify key issues and potential costs.
"In particular we would welcome your views on whether the focus on the requirements of legislation rather than best practice is more helpful to businesses and if this will remove the additional administrative costs businesses thought were contained in the EC guidance," the FSA stated.
The FSA originally issued its guidance notes on the general food law's legislative requirements on 31 December 2004. The European Commission's guidance was issued on 20 January 2005. The FSA revised its guidance on 10 March that year to take account of the Commission's guidance notes.
The FSA subsequently consulted the public in July 2005 on how well the Commission's guidance had been working to help inform industry as to what procedures it need to take under the law.
"The reaction from business was that the EC guidance was resulting in disproportionate costs to the food industry," the FSA noted. "The EC guidance classifies traceability information in two categories, the first to meet the legal requirements and the second to be followed as best practice. Responses from food businesses to the consultation exercise indicated that following such best practice guidance could result in additional costs."
The deadline for comments is 26 January 2007.