Plans for a massive shake-up of food hygiene and safety regulations across the food and drink industry have gone back to the drawing board, FSA bosses have revealed.
The food safety watchdog was given the go-ahead by The Treasury in last November’s budget to streamline food and hygiene regulation for major supermarkets using their own centralised store performance data.
However, the agency announced in March it was pushing ahead with a “more ambitious” plan to extend the controversial rollout of national regulation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to other sectors. These would include large food manufacturing, out-of-home and animal feed companies.
This week the FSA told The Grocer that after talks with supermarket bosses and a major consultation exercise it had agreed not to pursue a one-size-fits-all approach across the industry.
Instead it will push ahead with plans to use national data from supermarkets to oversee their food safety regimes and announced it had begun a new programme of work to look at how the system could be applied to the other sectors.
The FSA said it had carried out a three-month “sprint” exercise to look at options for how the new system would work, which would see compliant supermarkets face far fewer inspections than other businesses.
It involved a consultation with more than 1,000 stakeholders and looked at options for a national approach to regulating large food businesses.
The model being drawn up would see a “fundamental shift” away from inspections by local enforcement officers in favour of a system that would see the FSA tap into the vast amounts of data generated by companies like Aldi and Tesco.
Supermarkets including Aldi, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose have already taken part in early trials of a new system, which would include an overhaul of the FSA’s ‘Scores on the Doors’ Food Hygiene Ratings scheme, using supermarket data to judge the performance of large stores and free up local inspectors to concentrate on smaller so-called “rogue traders”.
The FSA said it held a meeting with the UK’s 10 largest food retailers, making up 97% of the retail market, in May.
“Originally, the plan was to start with large supermarkets, then look at applying the same approach to other parts of the food industry,” an FSA spokeswoman told The Grocer.
“However, early conversations with industry suggest that what works for supermarkets may not simply transfer over to other sectors, such as restaurants and takeaways, food manufacturing, or animal feed businesses.
“This is why the FSA is now recommending more time is spent working out exactly what would be needed to apply the approach elsewhere, rather than assuming it will work in the same way everywhere.”
A report to the forthcoming FSA board meeting next week also acknowledges that the agency had come across particular problems with how the national regulation proposals would work for online food companies.
“Regulating online platforms selling food, particularly where there’s no physical UK premises and no existing local authority inspection regime, has emerged as a significant and complex issue in its own right,” the spokeswoman told The Grocer. “This covers platforms where food may be sold by overseas sellers or unregistered businesses, sitting outside current regulatory oversight.
“Given the scale of this challenge, we’re treating it as a dedicated piece of work, building on the voluntary food safety charter already in place.
“A discovery and scoping exercise is underway now, looking at the scale of the problem, the policy and legislative implications, delivery options and resourcing needs.”
The FSA said it hoped to submit proposals for regulatory approval on its plans to ministers by January 2028. However, its plans have faced persistent opposition from local Environmental Health officials, who have cited evidence including lists of successful prosecutions against large supermarkets, which resulted from businesses failing to implement their corporate systems locally.
An investigation by The Grocer last year August found that 85 supermarkets nationwide had failed their most recent food hygiene safety inspections.
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