FOOD SAFETY
Helen Statham, food
safety team leader at
the council, checks food
in a holding warehouse
in Southall
Ealing is home to
a number of these
warehouses, including
St Mark in Southall.
Where unsatisfactory
results are found at
port checks, such as
excessive pesticides,
council offices will then visit the
warehouse to check the load. They work closely
with staff at St Mark to ensure products with
harmful contaminants are disposed of correctly.
Sunny Ali, manager of St Mark Freight Services
Ltd, said: “We have food from all over the world
come in here to be stored so it can be checked
– from Africa, South America, Asia. But the
number of consignments of food being failed by
the inspectors is falling. This mainly seems to be
because exporting countries are now cleaning up
their act, in terms of how they use pesticide.”
In 2014/15, this partnership between council
officers, port health inspectors and local
importers prevented more than 24 tons of unsafe
imported foods from entering the food chain.
Matthew Morris, operations manager of the
council’s regulatory services, said: “Pesticides
have an important role in the food chain but
excessive levels can be dangerous. We work
closely with local importers to ensure that unsafe
consignments are removed and destroyed.”
FOOD LABELLING
In the UK, it is estimated that 1–2% of adults and
5–8% of children have a food allergy and every
year there are around 4,500 hospital admissions
and 10 deaths because of it.
New EU allergen food labelling rules were
introduced in December 2014, making it easier for
people to see what is in the food they are eating
or putting in their shopping baskets. The council
has helped one of the highest numbers of food
establishments in London cope with the changes. All
registered and approved food establishments in the
borough were written to and inspectors carried
out training sessions for business owners.
You can read more on the allergens
and labelling of our foods here
around ealing
Winter 2015/16
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