Microbiological surveillance

Foodborne illness is an extremely important aspect of food safety. The FSA aims to achieve further reductions in foodborne disease by 2010 and it can do this through ensuring that all sectors of the food chain control their procedures effectively to prevent harmful microorganisms from contaminating food.

One of the ways that the FSA monitors the effectiveness of programmes to control microbiological hazards is through microbiological surveys. This work enables checks to be conducted on food and can therefore alert the Agency to any potential food safety issues as well as establishing current levels of microbial contamination in a range of foods. Surveys are carried out on a regular basis and focus either on particular foods or food processes. They may be undertaken in response to microbiological food hazards, outbreaks of foodborne disease or recommendations made by the independent Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food (ACMSF).

A food survey can highlight foods that are of a public health risk, but they can also identify those foods with very little contamination or where there has been a large reduction in contamination levels.

The Microbiological Surveillance Programme is currently conducting a number of surveys, details of which can be found at the link below.

In the 'Find out more' section is an archive of previous surveys.

If you require any further information on any of our surveys please email: micro.surveillance@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk