Northern Ireland food surveillance sampling report published

Wednesday 7 July 2010

The Northern Ireland Strategic Committee on Food Surveillance has published its second report on sampling activity in Northern Ireland. The results of sampling in 2008 show there have been few detections of food borne pathogens. However, there was a significant outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes in that year. There were no other significant foodborne outbreaks reported during 2008.

The report, which can be found at the link below, uses data from the UKFSS database to provide a broad overview of the microbiological and chemical analysis of food samples. The report gives a comprehensive insight into food sampling activities by district councils within Northern Ireland. It is anticipated that future Northern Ireland data from the UKFSS database will allow more focused study and reporting of trends in certain food groups and premises.

Food surveillance is an important public health measure. The information contained in the report should reassure the public that the necessary surveillance mechanisms are in place to identify and respond to unsatisfactory sample results. As with the committee's first report, the second report contains a number of recommendations to further improve food safety compliance and gives an indication of the issues the committee might explore in future work.

The UKFSS database holds details of more than 18,000 food samples for Northern Ireland.