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LONDON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Supermarkets and other foodsellers should be held criminally liable if they sellmislabelled meat to customers, according to agovernment-commissioned study on Thursday launched in the wakeof a horsemeat scandal.
In an interim report, Chris Elliott, director of theInstitute for Global Food Security at Queen's UniversityBelfast, said the UK food sector was at risk of beinginfiltrated by criminals looking for huge profits.
He said the 188 billion pound ($310 billion) food and drinksindustry was a "soft touch for criminals at the moment" with aworrying lack of knowledge about the extent of criminal activityin the industry and little chance of offenders being detected.
Elliott called for the establishment of a food crime unit toprevent fraud through increased intelligence-gathering, testing,and coordinating with other government departments.
"I believe criminal networks have begun to see the potentialfor huge profits and low risks in this area. The food industryand thus consumers are currently vulnerable," Elliott said inhis report.
Elliott was commissioned by the government in June to lookat any weaknesses in the food supply chain in Britain after thediscovery in January of horsemeat sold as beef in frozen burgersand lasagnas in British and Irish supermarkets, including thoserun by market leader Tesco.
The scandal raised questions about the safety of theEuropean food supply supply.
Elliott, finding regulators had struggled to keep up withthe complexity of the chain, said there should be zero toleranceover food fraud.
He outlined a series of ways that organised criminals canprofit from the food chain due to inadequate enforcement ofregulations. Examples included substituting fish with a cheaperspecies and adulterating products with other species.
"If meat is labelled as low-fat beef from England suitablefor home freezing, it should be accepted by its sellers thatthey will be considered to be dishonest and criminally liable ifit is not beef but is meat from some other animal," he said.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC), speaking on behalf thefood industry, said the Elliott review set out some usefulrecommendations for addressing areas of weakness and criminalbehaviour and looked forward to working together on this issue.
BRC Director General Helen Dickinson said major retailershad addressed many of the issues raised in the report since thehorsemeat scandal, building on existing controls on safety andincreasing testing.
"Retailers have reviewed and revised their supply chains,improved the way they audit their suppliers, targeted testingand worked with the BRC and industry partners to improve theexchange of intelligence," Dickinson said in a statement.
Elliott's final report with more detailed recommendationswill be published next year.
