The UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) has revealed its future plans on how it will monitor the food industry in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
In this regard, FSA Chairman Heather Hancock has released a document titled ‘Regulating Our Future – Why food regulation needs to change and how we are going to do it’.
The document which has been prepared after 18 months of debate and discussion, essentially lays out proposals to transform the manner in which food businesses are regulated in the three regions.
It explains in detail the changes the regulating body wants to bring about to create a system that is modern, risk-based, proportionate, robust and resilient.
Hancock said: “We need a modern, flexible and responsive regulatory system. It is important that we act now, rather than wait for the system to falter, risking damaging consequences for public health and for trust in food.
“These reform plans are given extra momentum as the UK leaves the EU, a step that will adjust patterns of food production, trade and consumption.”
FSA had been in talks with all the stakeholders involved including big and small businesses, third party assurers, local authorities and also consumers before publishing the document.
Some of the key steps, the regulating body would undertake are introducing an improved system of registration for food companies and segmenting them in a better way among others.
FSA stated that by getting to know more about a food company, it can make better judgments on how to regulate it. It also warns of creating a hostile environment for food businesses that would not register proactively with it.
The enhanced business registration system would help it identify and handle risk across the chain in a better way, said the regulator.
