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Food Focus February 2009

On the hunt for suspect food

Consumers rightly expect that products imported or produced in New Zealand are safe to eat. NZFSA gathers intelligence within New Zealand and from around the world to inform and manage food safety risks to ensure contaminated or adulterated imported food doesn’t make it on to supermarket shelves

Food safety scares do not always create a real risk to consumers, but if they do it is much more effective to deal with contaminated or adulterated food before it is distributed around the country. Several recent incidents concerning food imported into New Zealand have highlighted the complex issues that can arise when trying to manage suspect food arriving at the border.

When a problem is identified overseas with a food that might have found its way into New Zealand, NZFSA starts tracking the product down in the same way it responds to a domestic food safety outbreak (such as the recent case of Salmonella in flour). The suspect product could be anywhere – in a shipping container on a ship in the middle of the ocean, sitting on a wharf awaiting clearance, or even already in distribution centres or retailers.

NZFSA has a ‘toolbox’ of actions it can call on to manage the risks. It can advise the New Zealand Customs Service of the issue and ask that a flag be placed on its computer against the tariff code for the goods. Customs, on behalf of NZFSA, will then monitor all consignments covered by the flag, and ensure that the importer has obtained clearance to import from NZFSA’s border representative. They then coordinate with the national Public Health Units who arrange for Food Act Officers to check documentation and inspect and sample the consignments.

Shipping containers may contain multiple consignments of varying products, sometimes for different importers, and it can take some time to clear critical consignments. This holds up deliveries for the other importers and other consignments in the same container.

A difficulty in New Zealand has been the lack of a central list of importers who can be contacted if there is an identified risk. This issue has now been addressed with the passing of two import standards (see page 9), one of which requires importers to provide their contact details on a central database held by NZFSA. This will make it considerably easier in the future to alert importers to risky products and allow them to take proactive steps to prevent the product from reaching supermarket shelves.

An example of the difficulties facing regulators was the recent melamine scare, where the scale and extent of the problem was huge, with well-publicised consequences. Very briefly, in August last year companies in China had been found to be supplying milk formula contaminated with melamine (an industrial chemical). Babies fed the infant formula were falling ill and some had died. None of the infant formula had been imported into New Zealand but when the extent of the adulteration was found out, other products were implicated.

Product recalled

NZFSA issued a privileged statement on September 24 alerting the public to a confectionary product that may have contained melamine-contaminated milk.

Around this time retailers were stocking up with Christmas treats and importers were busy bringing in a variety of seasonal products, much of which fell under the ‘sugar confectionary’ label.

Using the tariff codes, NZ Customs was able to supply information about imported sugar confectionary. This showed that between February and September last year there were 634 consignments of sweets/biscuits/confectionary and related products, totalling 1,715,844kgs (nearly 2000 tonnes). Of those, only three consignments, weighing less than 250kg in total, were specifically identified as containing possibly suspect candies (<1.5% total volume).

It was also possible that the suspect sweets were not clearly identified, simply being declared to NZ Customs as ‘confectionary’ or ‘sweets’. Therefore, NZFSA needed to also contact all possible confectionary importers and ask them to withdraw or recall the product if it had been distributed. Numerous phone calls, faxes and visits to importers and food premises were made by Food Act Officers to track down any likely importers.

In October after an alert had been put in place, NZ Customs stopped 211 consignments on behalf of NZFSA, of which six contained suspected dairy product, but on inspection these suspect products were found to be compliant. Some consignments experienced delays while the importers satisfied NZFSA that they did not contain contaminated product.

Eight tariff codes have continued to be flagged by NZ Customs with respect to the melamine contamination and will be subject to ongoing review.

The Irish pork drama

On December 1 last year, routine monitoring in Ireland by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (DAFF) found polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), indicative of dioxin contamination in pork fat.

A nationwide precautionary product recall on Irish pigmeat produced after September 1 quickly followed in the UK and other countries. The problem was found to come from unlicensed oil used to fuel a burner drying bread that went into the feed at 10 pig farms, which accounted for about 10% of production in Ireland.

NZFSA remained in close contact with European, UK and Irish counterparts to keep up to date with the problem as the full story unfolded. At the same time NZFSA was able to confirm European advice that no pork consignments arriving in New Zealand had come from the affected Irish farms. Some pork exported to New Zealand from the UK contained Irish pork, but this was diverted from distribution as a result of suppliers notifying New Zealand so that their product could be held at the border. Having these details much simplified the process of finding and containing any suspect product.

What about the next big scare?

There will be another international food safety scare; that is almost certain, although we don’t know when, of course. The ability of NZFSA to communicate promptly with food importers is but one tool in a toolbox of measures that will help reduce disruption and risk, and ensure the continued safety of food supplied to New Zealand consumers. Early intervention by alerting importers to developing food safety outbreaks should minimise the risk of suspected product being distributed.

Two new standards approved last year will provide NZFSA with the necessary information to build confidence in food being imported and enable contact with food importers in New Zealand. The two standards are the:

• Food (Importer Listing) Standard 2008

• Food (Importer General Requirements) Standard 2008.

The Food (Importer General Requirements) Standard requires food importers to take responsibility for the food they import. This means that all importers of food are required to obtain evidence that the food imported is safe and suitable. The standards can be viewed on NZFSA’s website. If you are an importer and you haven’t yet listed your details, you can do this online at NZFSA’s importer listing service.