Food labelling laws compliance
Case reference FOI2022/01231
Published 7 October 2022
Request
1. Since 1 October 2021, how many Pre-packed for Direct Sale (PPSD) food businesses have been inspected to ascertain compliance with food labelling laws? Specifically, in relation to the requirements introduced from Natasha's Law?
2. Since 1 October 2021, how many PPSD food businesses within your local authority area have been found to be non-compliant with food labelling laws?
3. Since April 2020 until June 2022, please can you detail any support that has been provided and/or made available to local PPSD food businesses to support compliance with allergen labelling legislation?
4. Since April 2020 until June 2022, can you state the number of PPSD food businesses you have provided support to in relation to compliance with allergen labelling legislation?
5. Please can you detail any changes to environmental health /or food enforcement activities your organisation has implemented in response to Natasha's Law?
6. How many breaches of allergen labelling compliance have you been notified of from within your Local Authority area since October 2021?
Response
1. Since 1 October 2021, how many Pre-packed for Direct Sale (PPSD) food businesses have been inspected to ascertain compliance with food labelling laws? Specifically, in relation to the requirements introduced from Natasha's Law?
A: The service area are unable to answer this with any degree of accuracy. Our trader database does not include a code to denote whether a specific food business does PPDS or not, neither does the inspection form completed during a visit. This is not a requirement of Food CoP/LACORS risk assessment.
Since 1/10/2021, 188 food premises have been inspected across the risk categories, an unknown proportion being PPDS. I can confirm that in each case where PPDS is encountered, compliance with Natasha's Law will be fully checked.
2. Since 1 October 2021, how many PPSD food businesses within your local authority area have been found to be non-compliant with food labelling laws?
A: Looking through all non-compliant inspections which will at least record the nature of the non-compliance, we have found 16 businesses doing PPDS that were not complying with food labelling law.
NB inspection reports for complaint businesses would not necessarily record whether or not the business was PPDS.
3. Since April 2020 until June 2022, please can you detail any support that has been provided and/or made available to local PPSD food businesses to support compliance with allergen labelling legislation?
A: Support has been provided to PPDS businesses:
1) pro-actively via inspections with verbal advice and written warnings where appropriate,
2) re-actively through business advice i.e. when businesses come to us for advice and
3) on complaint visits when allegations of non-compliance are made by consumers.
4. Since April 2020 until June 2022, can you state the number of PPSD food businesses you have provided support to in relation to compliance with allergen labelling legislation?
A: As with question 1, no specific code exists for advice given specifically to PPDS businesses. Nevertheless, scrolling through all business advice requests that were dealt with in this period, the figure of 129 such requests were dealt with. We cannot give you a figure for total support to include inspections, because as with question 1, we are unable to give you a figure for specifically PDSS businesses inspected during this period, which would of course increase the number of 129.
5. Please can you detail any changes to environmental health /or food enforcement activities your organisation has implemented in response to Natasha's Law?
A: All Trading Standard Officers carrying out any food work (currently 3) have been trained re Natasha's Law via FSA funded courses, so we are fully aware of the additional legal requirements and therefore incorporate them into our inspection programme and business advice requests.
6. How many breaches of allergen labelling compliance have you been notified of from within your Local Authority area since October 2021?
A: 14 complaints of this nature have been received.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
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