APA News

  • Breakdown of the Regulatory System


    Illustration by Nathalie Lees

    As meat products are withdrawn from sale, and cash-strapped councils struggle to enforce standards, the regulatory system is breaking down. So writes Felicity Lawrence, a Guardian special correspondent and author of Not on the Label: What Really Goes into the Food on your Plate in her recent article. “We’re entitled to eat safe meat. Why has that become such a lottery?”
    Felicity also mentions the closure of Public Analyst laboratories in the concluding paragraph:

    “Local authority sampling and testing of foods fell by a quarter in 2017. At the same time council public analyst laboratories that carry out these tests are disappearing, as their work for depleted trading standards teams dries up. These cuts may seem safe to make. They’re not. Will it take a serious outbreak of food-borne illness for the government to realise what we are losing?”