Reports of rotten pork being sold in UK may lead to tighter control of FSA

theguardian.com:

The UK government is considering tightening control over the Food Standards Agency (FSA) following news that allegedly fraudulent pork products found their way on to UK supermarket shelves. On Thursday, Therésè Coffey, secretary of state for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), told the House of Commons that she will look at bringing the FSA, under her department’s control.

Coffey’s statement followed an investigation by trade publication, Farmers Weekly, which found that until at least the end of 2020, one of the UK’s top food manufacturers has sold mislabelled and sometimes rotten meat to retailers. Meat produced by the supplier, as yet unnamed, is reported to have ended up in products such as ready meals, quiches, sandwiches and other produce sold in Tesco, Asda, Co-op, Morrisons and Marks & Spencer.

The FSA, a non-ministerial agency currently overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, which is responsible for public health in relation to food in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, has launched an investigation into the alleged supply chain fraud. Defra minister of state Sir Robert Goodwill told the Guardian that having talked to the Farmers Weekly team behind the investigation, and read the reports, it was “obvious that the FSA inspectors appear to have been misled by the company, which hid the suspect meat, sometimes in lorries or in other parts of the factory, during the time it took for the inspectors to have a cup of tea and put on their protective clothing on.” “We could be looking at people going to prison because of how serious this all is,” he added.