Project 24337 - Guidance for Organisation of Informal Food Authenticity Surveillance Programmes

After the horsemeat incident, Prof Chris Elliott's Review recommended (No 4) "a resilient network of food analytical laboratories capable of testing consistently for food authenticity in the future". Defra's response was to seek a view from the Authenticity Methods Working Group (AMWG), which recommended that Defra "facilitate the development of guidance on surveillance programmes to inform national sampling programmes." This project aims to produce this guidance. Formal sampling for local authority prosecutions is subject to certain conditions laid down in the Food Safety Act in term of the number of samples taken. This guidance will focus on the considerations needed when deciding what an informal survey is trying to achieve in terms of covering the commercial market i.e. is it targeted or representative of the market. It will also examine which considerations must be taken into account about the method used to analyse the sample i.e. how robust is it, and what is the uncertainty around the result. These same considerations can be used by local authorities and public analysts if an investigation into the size of an authenticity issue such as misdescription or mislabelling needs to be undertaken.

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