Workshop to tackle future food threats

Friday 24 November 2006

The Agency is hosting an international workshop designed to tackle future threats to food safety and improve the food industry and governments� ability to stop or respond to problems.

The workshop will be held in London on 5-6 March 2007.

Foreseeing new threats is important in tackling them effectively. The International Workshop on Food Incidents Prevention and Horizon Scanning looks at ways to gather information and use sources of expertise in a way that matches advances in technology, business practices and international knowledge. The event will be of particular interest to the food industry and food regulatory authorities.

The workshop will look at actual and potential food safety incidents. It will examine underlying causes, drawing on the experiences of food manufacturers and retailers. The consequences – in terms of product reputation and consumer trust – will also be analysed.

There will also be a focus on incident prevention, with reference to the United Kingdom, European, Canadian, American, Australian and New Zealand experience.

On the final day, discussions will centre on intelligence gathering, group discussions and areas for future research. The programme includes a presentation from the Agency on the results of a project designed to look at information sources and apply them to a system for analysing threat. The effectiveness of the system will be shown using examples drawn from the area of environmental contaminants.

Those interested in obtaining more details should email Kara Thomas: kara.thomas@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk by 8 December 2006.