Food: Testing
Health

Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, Labour)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many food sample tests (a) the Food Standards Agency and (b) local authorities acting on behalf of the Food Standards Agency have conducted (i) throughout Scotland and (ii) in each local authority area in Scotland in each of the last five years.

Anna Soubry (Broxtowe, Conservative)

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is involved in a range of food sampling carried out each year under a range of national and European Union food legislation. The various areas of testing and numbers of samples taken are set out in the annual reports of the Implementation of the UK National Control Plan since 2007.

The FSA also commissions regular surveys of foods to help to protect and inform consumers by alerting the agency to potential food safety issues. The surveys help to judge the effectiveness of regulation and inform negotiations with the European Commission, monitor trends and assess risks. These surveys can also be found on the FSA website.

Local authorities in Scotland reported the following total number of food sample tests in their annual food law enforcement monitoring returns to the FSA:

These returns only include the samples tested by Official Control Laboratories and may not reflect the whole of the local authorities’ food sampling activities.

The data by individual local authority are: