Stay Ahead of Food Safety Risks

The IRU Prevention Team, part of the Incident and Resilience Unit (IRU) in the Food Standard Agency (FSA), is dedicated to enhancing food safety and preventing incidents before they occur. We collaborate with the Prevention Team in FSA’s National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) to engage with business and reduce the impact of food safety incidents and food crime.

For small businesses, understanding and implementing preventive actions can significantly benefit operations. By identifying potential risks early and taking proactive measures, costly recalls can be avoided, a brand's reputation protected, and the safety of consumers remain protected. To assist the industry in doing this, our team work closely with businesses and their representatives for a 2-way information exchange on potential risks to food and feed.  Indications of such risks are referred to as “signals”, and we actively monitor over 50 open data sources that report on food and feed safety incidents which have occurred globally. 

We also work with industry to maximise the benefits of Root Cause Analysing (RCA). When an incident has happened, engaging in RCA can provide valuable insights and help you stay ahead of reoccurrence. The definition of “root cause” is ‘the underlying cause(s) of a problem which, if addressed, will prevent a recurrence of that problem’. RCA is a problem-solving process that helps pinpoint the chain of events leading up to an incident and identify specific steps for action to prevent recurrence and help businesses protect themselves.

You can find an introduction of how to carry out RCA here: Introduction to Root Cause Analysis

If you have any feedback, questions or “signals” to share, please contact the preventionteam@food.gov.uk