Abstracts Health Sciences

Challenges in implementing food safety legislation

by Satu Tähkäpää

After a series of food incidents in the 1990s, the food business sector has become one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the European Union (EU), with ever-evolving regulations regarding both official food control and food business operators (FBOs). The regulatory framework is meaningless if the regulation is not implemented promptly according to transitional provisions and in a unified way. Dissenting implementation of food safety legislation may also endanger the equal treatment of FBOs and the principle of free trade of foodstuff in the EU. This research provides a new perspective on the challenges of implementing food legislation, with the phenomenon surveyed from the viewpoints of both control officials and FBOs. Resources and organization of food control affect actual control work and were thus included. Varying ways of reporting and handling food frauds on the local, national and EU levels were also investigated. Fulfilling food control requirements set in food legislation necessitates an adequate quantity and quality of personnel, whereas organization of food control can differ between countries or areas depending on socio-economic and political factors. In Finland, municipalities alone or as a joint control unit are responsible for local food control in their respective areas. According to the results, this may lead to varying implementation and interpretation of food legislation, endangering equal treatment of FBOs. There is an alarming shortage of food control personnel in some regions in Finland. Even when food safety is the responsibility of FBOs, scarce resources in food control result in a lower percentage of approved in-house control systems among FBOs. This research revealed a connection between the number of approved in-house control systems and the number of reported food- or waterborne outbreaks in the area, especially in regions with inadequate food control resources. EU legislation concerning quality systems, food control plans and food control fees are implemented in Finland at regionally different time points and with different contents directly influencing FBOs in regionally variable ways. Control officials support larger control units, with the rationale that they will increase equal treatment of FBOs. Both control officials and FBOs have problems in implementation of food legislation, and FBOs are also challenged with varying interpretation of legislation and requirements of control officials. As food safety is the responsibility of the FBOs, they need to understand and carefully comply with legislation. The challenges of fish and meat FBOs in implementation of legislation were therefore evaluated. According to this study, the most common problems concerning food safety legislation are related to layout of production premises and transport routes, control fees, requirements concerning in-house control and structures and maintenance of premises. Risk evaluation is problematic for both control officers and FBOs. Traditional food control measures are challenged, when…