Tag Archives: FSAI

This afternoon.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland has published an ‘allergy alert notification’ about a batch of Centra Salmon Sensation (above).

To wit:

“The implicated batch of Centra Salmon Sensation was mis-packed with Centra Prawn Cocktail.

The product contains prawns (crustaceans) and sodium metabisulphite (sulphur dioxide) which are not mentioned on the label.

This may make the batch unsafe for consumers who are allergic to or intolerant of crustaceans and/or sulphur dioxide.”

Yikes.

Undeclared Prawns and Sulphur Dioxide in a Batch of Centra Salmon Sensation (FSAI)

Camden Rotisserie on Lower Camden Street, Dublin 2 which is appealing a closure order 

Today.

The Food Safety Authority has announced that, during October, it served 14 closure orders on food businesses for breaches of food safety legislation, one improvement order and two prohibition orders.

On its website, the FSAI explained some of the general reasons for the orders.

They include:

Rodent paw marks on dusty shelves; gnaw marks on coffee bean bags; two dead rats found in the dry goods storeroom; rusted and dirty interior of a mincing machine; an absence of staff food hygiene training records for all food handlers; and one business did not have the facilities to sell and supply fresh fish and crustaceans as there was no dedicated area for handling the fresh fish and crustaceans.

The reasons also included a food worker handling raw frozen burger meat and not changing gloves when dressing cooked burgers; and when management were asked about two complaints regarding maggots in fish they could provide no information with regard to traceability of the product or to where the remainder of implicated fish had been disposed of.

Ew.

The 14 closure orders were served on:

NKD Pizza (Take Away), 9 Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin 6

The Whole Hoggs (Small Meat Manufacturing Plant), Rathmaiden, Slane, Meath

Euro Corner (Retailer), (Closed area: all of the business except [from 10 October 2019] the grocery in the front of the ground floor, for sales of pre-packed ambient foods only) 13 Broad Street, Waterford City, Waterford

Instanbel Buffet House, 90-91 Marlborough Street, Dublin 1

Glyde Fries Takeaway, Main Street, Tallanstown, Louth

Wisla (Retailer), Unit 2, Park Road Business Park, Park Road, Waterford

Celtic Pure (Packaged Water), Corcreagh, Shercock PO, Monaghan

Cloncat Service Station (Retailer), (Closed Activity: Using water sourced from the private well supplying the business for 1. drinking; 2. making hot/cold drinks or ice; 3. food preparation i.e. washing, 4. as an ingredient in any food prepared on premises) Fordstown, Navan, Meath

Hot & Tasty Foodstall (Take Away), Main Road, Ballyforan, Roscommon

Indian Moon (Take Away), 3A West Douglas, Douglas, Cork

C&E (Retailer), (Closed activity: the sale and supply of fresh fish and crustaceans), 19 Catherine Street, Limerick

U Pick Store (Retailer) Unit 6, Westside Business Centre, Seamus Quirke Road, Galway

Gabriela’s Tea Room (Restaurant), (Closed activity: the manufacture of cakes and confectionery on the premises) Cavan Street, Oldcastle, Meath

Camden Rotisserie (under appeal) (Restaurant – Café), 37 Lower Camden Street, Dublin 2

Dr Pamela Byrne, CEO of FSAI, said: “Seventeen Enforcement Orders in one month is the highest in a month to date this year and this is an unacceptable number.”

Seventeen Enforcement Orders Served on Food Businesses in October (FSAI)

5/2/2013 Professor Alan Reilly at Oireachtas Heari (L-R) Ray Ellard, Consumer Director of FSAI, Prof Alan Reilly FSAI Chief Executive.

Can we do NOTHING right?

Many people were annoyed that “the Paddies” uncovered the horse meat scandal that turned out to be a case of massive international food fraud, Ray Ellard, consumer production director of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland said yesterday. He said it was felt, particularly in Britain, that the authority was acting on information, but it was just doing its job.

“There was a massive international food fraud going on and Ireland found it and that’s annoyed a lot of people, that the Paddies found it,” he said. “I’m sorry to say that, but that’s the truth of it.” Mr Ellard and the Food Safety Authority’s chief executive, Prof Alan Reilly, recently encountered hostile questioning from MPs when they met the Westminster committee on the environment, food and rural affairs. MPs repeatedly insisted that the Food Safety Authority was acting on a tip-off when it tested for horse meat and were critical of the fact that no one has yet been prosecuted for their role in the horse meat scandal. Prof Reilly said he was shocked and dismayed at the aggressive nature of the questioning and the political point-scoring.

He said it was a case of “blame the Irish” for uncovering the fraud.

 

Annoyance that ‘the Paddies’ uncovered horse meat scandal, conference told (Alison Healy, Irish Times)

(Mark Stedman / Photocall Ireland)

 

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) failed to give its British counterparts proper notice of the discovery of horse meat in burgers, the chairman of the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) has told a House of Commons inquiry.

The British were told on January 14th – a day before the public announcement – that horse DNA had been found in a number of samples taken from two plants controlled by Larry Goodman’s ABP group in Ireland and in Yorkshire.

“One of the things is that they didn’t tell us until the day before they announced it yet weeks before they must have known what they were finding but they didn’t tell us,” Lord Rooker told MPs.

Tesco group technical director Tim Smith, whose company yesterday ended its frozen burger contract with Silvercrest, said the Irish side believed the horse meat contamination dated back more than six months.

“I have had the benefit of conversations with the Minister of Agriculture in Ireland [Simon Coveney] and the FSAI and both of them have said – in a conversational way, rather than an evidential way – that they believe it started in May 2012,” he told MPs.

*popcorn*

Irish gave British one day’s notice of horse DNA in beef (Mark Hennessy, Irish Times)

(Gareth Chaney/Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)