Front-line staff and factory workers will be urged to lift the lid on criminal activity in the UK food and drink sector later this year, when the National Food Crime Unit will launch a whistleblower campaign.
The push, likely to launch in early summer, will encourage staff to get in touch directly with the NFCU to report potential abuses.
“Human intelligence sources” were an important missing link in efforts to protect British consumers from food crime at the moment, which the unit was keen to plug, said NFCU head Andy Morling. An appointment to head up the new whistleblower campaign for the NFCU would be made imminently.
“This is targeted at people who directly work in the industry but who are not the controlling minds,” said Morling. “I want them to feel they can come directly to us.”
It comes as the NFCU’s first annual review, published today, reveals intelligence sharing between industry and law enforcement authorities remains poor.
While several initiatives – such as the Food Intelligence Network – had improved information flow within the industry, companies still remained reluctant to share intelligence about potential crimes with the National Food Crime Unit, the report said.
“There’s a tendency to deal with issues themselves and not cause a stir,” said Morling. “I understand some of the reluctance, and – to be fair – it’s the first time industry has been asked for information in this way. We still have a job to do in explaining what we want and what we’ll do with the information we’re given.”
But the industry also had to “look at itself”, Morling said. “There is an ethical duty on all of us to help fight crime. The message to industry has to be: help us to help others.”
The NFCU was set up in December 2014 in the wake of the horsemeat scandal and following a review of the UK food sector by Professor Chris Elliott.
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