Our new food watchdog is floundering.
In the last few weeks, over beef labelling and cheese safety issues, Food Standards Scotland has undermined its own credibility and is rapidly losing the confidence of the industry it was established to oversee.
Back in September, in the wake of an outbreak of e.coli, it ordered the destruction of all six cheese brands from Lanark-based producers, Errington Cheese. While public health is paramount, FSS’s actions in banning all the company’s cheeses failed to receive the backing of leading bacteriologist Professor Sir Hugh Pennington who described the decision as heavy-handed.
Then, just a week ago, FSS rejected claims it had offered to pay Errington’s legal fees in full, in return for the cheesemaker dropping its application for a judicial review.
And while FSS staff were busy issuing those denials, the body’s investigations manager, Duncan Smith volunteered the information – in the presence of his own press officer – that the watchdog’s new food crime unit was investigating reports of meat from Europe, Ireland and England coming into Scotland and being relabelled as Scottish.
Within hours of The Courier contacting the meat industry for comment for our report, a statement was issued by FSS denying any such probe, even though it was the assertion of their own employee that an investigation was ‘absolutely’ taking place.
Today we’re releasing the audio of the interview with Mr Smith so that readers can judge for themselves if FSS is incompetent or duplicitous. Or both.
From where I’m standing it is clear that sinister cracks in the independence of our new food watchdog have been exposed.
Scottish farmers, the food industry and consumers deserve better.
