national food crime unit (7)

13003660301?profile=RESIZE_584xThe latest edition of the Foods Standards Agency's National Food Crime industry newsletter has been published.

This edition covers:

  • 2024 FSA and FSS Food Crime Strategic Assessment.
  • Counterfeit Vodka.
  • Sustainability Claims. 
  • Good practice for ‘goods in’ stock. 
  • Meat composition and labelling. 
  • Horizon scanning. 

Read the bulletin.

You can contact the NFCU Prevention team to feedback, raise a concern or possibly contribute to a future update.

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12164813283?profile=RESIZE_710xA new vacancy for a Senior Intelligence Analyst has arisen at the Food Standards Agency's National Food Crime Unit (NFCU).

The role will be focussing on the delivery and assurance of NFCU's tactical and strategic intelligence analysis to better understand and communicate the food crime threat, as well as the support and development of NFCU's analyst and researcher cadre.

You'll be playing your part in keeping food safe and what it says it is, and protecting UK consumers from deceptive practices in the food sector. 

Home or hybrid working is available for this post.

The deadline is 6th August 2023.

For further information / to apply: Senior Intelligence Analyst - Civil Service Jobs - GOV.UK

 

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A freedom of information request by the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) to the FSA's National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) revealed that in 2018 there were 1,193 food crimes recorded. Examples of food crime include the use of stolen food in the supply chain, unlawful slaughter, diversion of unsafe food, adulteration, substitution or misrepresentation, and document fraud. The most common food crime recorded by the NFCU is the ‘knowing sale of food substances not suitable for human consumption’, which could have consequences for public health. In 2018, there were 310 reported cases in this category, as compared to 73 in the previous year.

3689023291?profile=RESIZE_710x  Read the article here

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3549856866?profile=RESIZE_710xRachel Gullaksen, Sean Daly and Malcolm Burns (from left to right) looking at multispectral imaging applications for food authenticity

The Food Standards Agency’s National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) aims to help protect businesses and consumers from fraudulent supply chains through building relationships with industry, delivering crime prevention initiatives and conducting thorough, proportionate investigations where necessary. This is to support the Food Standard Agency to deliver its overarching strategy that “food is safe and is what it says it is”.

Following an increase to its budget, the NFCU has seen significant extension of the unit’s capabilities and remit in terms of its investigation and crime disruption capabilities and the prevention of food crime. As part of its outreach programme and as a follow-up to a meeting between Darren Davies, Head of the NFCU and the Government Chemist, Julian Braybrook and Selvarani Elahi in May 2019, colleagues from the NFCU visited LGC.

Selvarani Elahi gave a presentation on the Food Authenticity Network, highlighting the benefits of closer collaboration between this growing global network and the NFCU, both of which were created by the UK government to address the recommendations of the Elliott Review.

NFCU colleagues were taken on a tour of LGC’s National Measurement Laboratories where LGC staff demonstrated research on a range of technologies from point-of-use screening to confirmatory methods capable of combating food crime or food fraud .

 

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The National Food Crime Unit has launched Food Crime Confidential. This is a reporting facility where anyone with suspicions about food crime can report them safely and in confidence, over the phone or through email. The facility is particularly targeted at those working in or around the UK food industry.

More details at:  Food Crime Confidential

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Andy Morling, the Head of FSA's National Food Crime Unit, responds to questions about the activities of the new Unit formed in March 2015.

Read the full article in Food Science & Technology Vol 30 Issue 1 March 2016 p11-13 or on-line at:

http://www.fstjournal.org/interview/30-1/andy-morling

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