Although food safety spending cuts were associated with local authority staffing reductions and decreases in the number of official food hygiene interventions, industry compliance was not negatively affected.
A UK Government report calls attention to the increasing volume of illegally imported meat and dairy to Great Britain, which is often unsafe and unhygienic, posing foodborne illness and zoonotic disease risks. It recommends a coordinated approach to tackling illicit imports.
The UK Government has proposed rules that would prohibit the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to children under the age of 16, intended to “prevent obesity in up to 40,000 children and deliver health benefits worth tens of millions of pounds.”
The UK Food Standards Agency’s National Food Crime Unit (FSA’s NFCU) have arrested four people involved in the distribution and sale of mixed rice in counterfeit “premium basmati” packaging.
England saw a 26 percent rise in Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) infections from 2023 to 2024, and non-O157 STEC cases tripled since 2019. These trends may be driven by one foodborne illness outbreak involving contaminated salad leaves.
According to UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) laboratory data on campylobacteriosis and non-typhoidal salmonellosis reports in England for 2014–2023, the total number of confirmed reports for both pathogens reached ten-year highs in 2023, and incidence for both also increased from the previous year.
Following a winter with higher-than-average reports of norovirus cases linked to an emergent genotype, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is warning the public about a potential second wave of infections associated with a second, more common genotype.
The UK Government is proposing the addition of several foodborne and waterborne viruses, bacteria, and parasites to the list of notifiable causative agents under the Health Protection Notification Regulations, for which laboratories testing human samples are required to report positive test results.
A recent study found the majority of vegan meat and dairy alternatives available in England to be of satisfactory microbiological quality. Tofu from one producer had a Listeria problem.
