Food Safety Law

Food safety law is governed by the Food Safety Act 1990, which is of crucial importance to all producers and suppliers of food. The Act provides the framework for food legislation in Great Britain.

The Food Standards Agency is responsible to central government for the control of food safety regulations.  Another facet of food safety law is the General Food Law Regulation (EC) 178/2002 and the Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013.

The Act and subsidiary legislation set out the responsibilities of businesses to ensure that:

1. Businesses do not include anything in food, remove anything from food, or treat food in any way that would lead to it damaging to the health of people eating it.
2. The food that businesses serve or sell is of the quality that consumers would expect.
3. The food is labelled, advertised, and presented in a way that is not false or misleading.

The Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulation 2013 made provision for the enforcement of specific provisions of EU Regulation 178/2002.

Several criminal offenses are created by the Food Safety Act 1990.

They include:

• Section 7 – rendering food injurious to health by:
  • adding an article or substance to the food
  • using an article or substance as an ingredient in the preparation of the food
  • abstracting any constituent from the food
  • subjecting the food to any process or treatment with the intention that it shall be sold for human consumption
• Section 14 – selling to the purchaser’s prejudice any food which is not of the nature or substance or quality demanded by the purchaser.
• Section 15 – falsely describing or presenting food.
• It is a defence under Section 21 for a supplier to prove he took reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence to avoid the commission of the offence.