FSA water in chicken update May 2003

Tuesday 20 May 2003

Following surveys by the Food Standards Agency on the adding of water with proteins derived from pork and beef to chicken, the European Commission is to publish proposals to tighten the labelling laws on these products.

The Agency has been leading efforts in Europe to expose and clamp down on the mislabelling of chicken products, through enforcement action both in the UK and in co-ordination with authorities in Holland where the practice is most common.

The Dutch authorities have taken action against several companies identified in the FSA survey.

The Agency is proposing that if a chicken product contained an ingredient from any other animal this would have to be declared and displayed prominently in the product's name.

So, for example, a chicken product containing hydrolysed protein derived from pork would have to be prominently labelled as 'chicken product containing pork' or 'chicken product with pork ingredients'.

The proposal will also tighten the current requirements for labelling of water in chicken.

The Agency wants the use of added water to be declared more prominently.

Water and hydrolysed animal proteins are added to chicken to bulk up the product, which is then sold on largely to the catering industry.

It isn't illegal to add water or animal proteins to chicken if the product is accurately labelled.

However, Agency surveys have uncovered that many chicken products supplied to UK restaurants and takeaways aren’t accurately labelled.

The presence of undeclared pork and beef proteins in chicken has caused great concern, especially among some religious groups.

There have been two surveys on this issue in the UK (December 2001 and March 2003) and two surveys in Ireland (Food Standards Authority Ireland May 2002 and March 2003).

Of 130 samples in total, 65 claimed to have more meat than was the case, 20 contained pork DNA, seven contained beef DNA and four contained both pork and beef DNA.

The FSA survey in March 2003 was for enforcement purposes. Twenty local authorities that took part are considering formal enforcement action against the relevant companies.

In a related development, Dutch authorities report that they have taken formal enforcement action against five companies processing chicken products in the Netherlands, which is the centre of this industry.

Four of these companies were targeted after their activities were highlighted by the Agency's work in the UK.

This is a labelling issue, which does not raise any new safety concerns. In response to queries about any risks in relation to BSE, the Agency has identified the source of the beef protein added to the chicken as collagen from hide, and the European Scientific Steering Committee concluded that the parts of the hide used for the production of collagen don’t present a risk of BSE, provided contamination is avoided.

All beef is subject to European-wide BSE controls.

Therefore, provided these controls have been applied, any traces of beef that may be in other products wouldn’t raise any new food safety concerns.

The Agency has always made it clear that it would look into any new evidence that will help it to crack down on these scams.

Water in chicken: timeline

• December 2001 Agency publishes survey highlighting the mislabelling of chicken containing added water and hydrolysed proteins.
• December 2001 Agency informs the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSA-I) about the survey’s findings, because it was thought that similar chicken products were also entering Ireland.
• June 2002 Wolverhampton City Council successfully prosecutes one of the suppliers of mislabelled chicken product.
• July 2002 Agency sends letter to all suppliers/wholesalers of the catering chicken tested in the survey to remind them of their 'due diligence' responsibilities to provide properly labelled products.
• January 2003 Agency officials meet Dutch authorities about mislabelled chicken products processed in the Netherlands.
• March 2003 Agency publishes results of a follow-up to the December 2001 study.
• March 2003 European Commission confirms that the European Scientific Steering Committee concluded in May 2001 that beef collagen added to chicken doesn't present a risk.
• April 2003 Dutch authorities inform the Agency that they have taken formal enforcement action against five companies for mislabelling chicken products.

Background

The Food Standards Agency first reported the problem of inaccurate labelling of chicken in December 2001, following a joint investigation by the Agency and local authorities.

The survey found that nearly half of the chicken products tested had a meat content of between 5% and 26% less than declared on the packaging.

Hydrolysed protein was found in 16 of the 68 samples: none contained beef DNA, but two contained pork DNA that was not indicated on the label.

The Agency published a follow-up to the survey in March 2003, which demonstrated that inaccurate labelling practices were still continuing.

The results showed that almost three-quarters of the products tested wrongly used the description 'chicken breast' or 'chicken fillet', which should only be used for chicken with no added ingredients.

Nearly half the samples contained traces of DNA from pigs and all but one of these were labelled as halal.