Minutes of Food Standards Sub Committee: 13 March 2008

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Meeting held at Business Development Centre, 2 High Street, Perth, PH1 5PH

Attendees
Paul Bradley – Lothian and Borders Food Liaison Group (Chair)
George Mair – West of Scotland Food Liaison Group
Jacqui McElhiney – Senior Scientific Advisor, FSA Scotland
Jervis Browne – East of Scotland Food Liaison Group
Lynn Cree – Environmental Health Advisor, HPS
Jim Dixon – Perth and Kinross Council
Stuart Joyce – Public Analyst, Glasgow Scientific Services
Andrew Mackie – Public Analyst, Edinburgh
Catherine Ferro – FSA Scotland (Secretariat)

1. Welcome and Apologies
The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting. Apologies had been received from the following members:
John Bell – North of Scotland Food Liaison Group
Tom Reid – Consultant Microbiologist, Aberdeen
Mary Lawton – Scottish Consumer Council

2. Minutes of Last FSSC Meeting (24 January 2008)
The minutes were agreed as a true record.

3. Matters Arising
1. Paul Bradley to contact TSI to discuss costings for 'EH only' use.
Unable to contact. Will pursue

2. Jacqui McElhiney to clarify the requirements of European legislation on smoke with FSA colleagues.
Completed

3. Andrew Mackie to consult on this matter with the Association of Public Analysts and report back to the group.
A decision was taken to send a query to the LACoRS labelling group on smoked foods.

4. Paul Bradley to formulate a draft referral to LACORS seeking clarification of the issue.
Paul Bradley will circulate the information shortly

5. Paul Bradley to send FSS data on milk samples to Andrew Mackie.
Completed

6. Paul Bradley to prepare draft report on survey participation for SFELC.
Completed

7. Committee to ensure all future SFELC survey reports include a list of participating LAs.
Completed

8. George Mair to circulate the guidance notes produced on allergens.
Completed

9. All to compile a list of their top 5 queries for interrogating the FSS.
Completed

10. Jacqui McElhiney to write desk notes for using MS Access to summarise FSS data and production of pivot tables and then circulate these to the Committee.
desk notes with PB at present to be forwarded to other members once approved

11. FLGs, APA and Microbiologist reps to make arrangements for their representatives on the RWG to be renominated or replacements identified. All nominations to be passed to P Bradley asap.
to be discussed under agenda item 4 below

12. Catherine Ferro to contact Jim Dixon with regard to finalising dates for future meetings at Pullar House, Perth.
Completed

13. Jacqui McElhiney to request an update on infant formulae and follow-on formulae from FSAS colleagues for circulation.
Completed

14. Paul Bradley to circulate draft procedures

15. George Mair to circulate his comments on CoP review to the group for information.
Completed

4. Research Working Group [RWG]
The next RWG will take place in early May.

The following groups discussed possibilities for their nomination to the RWG;

• East of Scotland will provide a new nomination
• Lothian and Borders will provide a new nomination
• West of Scotland George Mair will still attend as RWG representative
• North of Scotland Paul Bradley will contact John Bell to clarify
• Agreed to invite a second Analyst – AM to progress

The following discussion centred on criteria for a new RWG representative. Agreed an individual with an industry or academic view would be useful. Discussion followed on possible uses of the FSS and Jacqui McElhiney indicated that she would circulate her requests for 2007 data reports. Members of the committee could then consider these and indicate which standard queries would be most useful to LA and laboratory users.
Action – Jacqui McElhiney to circulate requests of 2007 data to FSSC members.
Subsequent action - all members will submit their top 5 FSS queries to Paul.

5. Survey Programmes


2008/09 Survey Programme
PB indicated that the fish hygiene working group would write the protocols and reports for surveys SF18 and SF19.

Options for a Chemical Survey
The committee discussed a range of possible areas for a chemical survey in 2008 and the preferred option was to study the salt, fat and sugar content of a limited range of predominantly Scottish foods.
Action – Paul Bradley to write a draft protocol for the chemical survey which would be discussed by the Sub-Committee.

It was also agreed that an alternative survey might be required if this survey was unsuitable. Options discussed included colours in Indian foods including sunset yellow.

Further options discussed included a survey of what school children commonly consumed instead of school meals.

Allergens was also raised as a possible survey topic due to the FSA work on allergens being presently on hold. It was suggested that this survey could focus on one of the more recently recognised allergens such as lupin or mollusc allergens. SJ also highlighted that there may be scope to repeat the previous work carried out on peanut allergens as the Dundee laboratory had been using a new ELISA test which may be able to pick up peanut proteins in sauces which had given unexpected negative results in previous surveys of take-away meals.

It was agreed that the Chemical survey would proceed between July and December; in addition the Microbiological survey would run between October and March.

Options for a Microbiological Survey
The Committee discussed a possible option for the 2008/09 microbiological survey, which was an extension of the LBFLG survey of water from water coolers.

Andrew Mackie highlighted that there was a need for standards for water stored in coolers and that recommendations could be based on a national survey.

It was agreed that Andrew Mackie would consider a suitable protocol for this survey once the LBFLG report was prepared and report back to the Committee for consideration at the next meeting on 22 May 08.
Action – Andrew Mackie to draft a protocol for the survey.

Current surveys


LS20 (Lacors survey of speciality meats)
SJ highlighted the considerable amount of work that was involved in collating sampling information required by Lacors and HPA through paper proformas, and that this was also resulting in duplication of effort on the part of sampling officers and labs

The committee agreed that FSS should be used as the sole means of collecting survey data in Scotland and that LACoRS and HPA should be advised of this position.
Action – Paul Bradley to write to LACoRS and HPA to advise that FSS should be used as the sole means of collecting survey data in Scotland.

FS4
Andrew Mackie asked the Committee for their views on whether it was appropriate for restaurants to use “Torbay” Sole (also known as ‘Witch’) under the broad term “Sole”. The general response from the committee was that consumers would expect Dover~ or Lemon Sole when purchasing Sole dishes but that the use of “sole” without further description on the menu would make it difficult to criticise the use of these species.

FS12
MSG in takeaways –the committee were happy for this survey report to be passed to SFELC.
Action – Paul Bradley to arrange for report SF12 to be passed to SFELC.

6. Food Sampling Co-ordination Working Group
PB indicated that there was nothing further to report as the group had not met since the last FSSC meeting.

7. Business from Food Liaison Groups (FLGs)


Foreign pre-packed food being sold with out English labelling
The committee discussed the issue of products being sold in Polish shops in the Scotland that were not labelled in English. The group discussed the issued and highlighted that all necessary labelling must be in English in order to comply with the Regulations

8. Sharing Food Standards Advice for Consumers, Enforcers and Trade


Deemed to Satisfy Initiative
The committee was content with this work to continue as it had been progressing well. PB asked the group to consider future topics to be included.

The draft reports on complaints and food alerts were agreed and will be passed to FSAS Audit Team for comment before going to SFELC for ratification.
Action – All to compile a list of other deemed to satisfy topics .eg. Export Certificates
Action – Paul Bradley to send both of the agreed deemed to satisfy reports to FSAS Audit team for comment

9. Code of Practice Review
In view of the remaining short timescale for comment ant the fact that most LAs and FLGS were already making more complete comments the Sub-Committee limited discussion to a long standing issue of concern. The Sub-Committee discussed the scoring system in Annex 5 and the need for guidance on complex menus, including a clear definition of this term.
Action – Paul Bradley to contact Andy Morrison of the FSA with comments on complex menus.

10. Any other business
JB highlighted David Statham’s recent report to the board on sampling and inspections in different areas, which indicates a steep decline in sampling.

Jacqui McElhiney indicated that she had received an enquiry from FSA Northern Ireland on the definition of the term 'acceptable' for the purposes of inputting data on the FSS. The committee confirmed that it is not possible to classify “acceptable” as “satisfactory”, and that it was therefore practice to define all samples that had not been given a satisfactory result (i.e. unacceptable, unsatisfactory and acceptable) as not satisfactory . This has translated into a 'fail' in FSS

GM informed the Committee that he had been emailed with details of a Nutrition labelling course. This email was directed toward all LAs. Upon contact with the organiser, it appears this related to England and not Scotland.
Action – Paul Bradley to ask if FSAS would fund this course through the low cost training budget.

Action – Jacqui McElhiney to circulate the 2007 FSS sampling data to the committee.

11. Dates of Next Meeting
The next meeting will be held on 22 May 2008 at 10:30 Pullar House, Perth